Higher Ed Data Stories

It's the end of summer, so this is a quick and easy visualization, showing enrollment in 2013 by institution on a map.  The data is provisional IPEDS data, so it's subject to some corrections, but the overall patterns won't change. It's probably obvious: Most colleges and universities are in populated areas, and so most college enrollment is too. But a few clicks can point out some interesting differences between and among the regions in the US.  Take a look at the first map, showing the US population. Every county in the country is colored from green (low) to red (high) populations. It should come as no surprise that most of the US Population lives on or in the east coast, the midwest, and the west coast. Now click on the tab at the top to to see where college students enroll, and you'll see a similar pattern: The orange and purple circles represent four-year public and private, not-for-profit institutions; the size of the circle is the relative enrollment.

Higher education is obsessed with prestige and institutions are always clamoring to find new ways to make it into the exclusive clubs in which they see their peers: Most selective, most applications,highest test scores, or  biggest capital campaigns, for instance. Has the top gotten bigger? I looked at IPEDS data from 2004 and 2013, and focused just on those whose numbers say are in the upper echelons of higher education, notwithstanding the limitations of IPEDS data. Use the tabs across the top to see the Tableau Story Points and see for yourself how the world has changed.The good news might be that if you're a student, there are more "elite" colleges these days; the bad news is that some of them are harder than ever to get into.  And that makes them happy. Learn About Tableau

My now-annual visualization of IPEDS admissions data is now up. This is always a popular post, for a lot of reasons: Counselors like to use it as a resource: journalists tell me it helps put things in perspective; and alumni rush to see how their school did last year (admit it, I know you do!) There are several tabs across the top to show test scores, admit rates, applications received, and other interesting data points. To get the most of it, you must interact, so click a filter to see only a region, or limit the view to schools of a certain size. You won't break anything. If you do, just click the little recycle button near the bottom to reset anything. IPEDS data is often wrong (more often at small schools with limited or no IR Staff) so take some of this with a grain of salt. And this always involves a lot of typing sans spell-check. If (when) you see something, let me know. Until then, enjoy. Learn About Tableau