Higher Ed Data Stories

Previously, I did an analysis of colleges, showing which states freshmen came from in 2012.  It was very popular with people who are interested in the topic of geographic diversity. But I heard another admissions person say last week (while I was at Missouri ACAC) that her college wants to enroll more students from outside the state.  It's not hard to figure out why: Students who cross borders (or who travel farther to college) are generally wealthier and have parents who are college-educated themselves, both of which make these students attractive targets.  Since the number of these students who are likely to migrate is essentially fixed in any given year, the intent to recruit more of them is really an effort to get a bigger piece of the pie. But some states have naturally stronger pulls; others export more because of a relative lack of opportunity based on a smaller selection of colleges.  Where do students in your state come from?  Is your state enrolling a lot of students

Diversity is a topic a lot of us in higher education think about and write about and work towards, and yet, we don't really have a common definition of what it means. At its most basic level, we simply talk about the percentage of our students who are non-white. And, of course, if you compare colleges today to those in the 1950's, this makes perfect sense, and allows us to give ourselves all a pat on the back. But the success of Asian students over the past few decades has complicated this: While they are not white, their large numbers at the nation's most selective institutions, and performance on college admissions examinations, makes us occasionally shift the discussion to under-represented students of color, which today might include Native American and Alaska Natives, Latino or Hispanic students, African-American students, Asians who are Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and students of two or more races or ethnicity. This of course causes us to wonder whether a student

April 1, 2015 This week, all the hype about college admissions comes out.  Blah blah blah this college admitted only 7%.  Blah blah blah Oh Yeah? We admitted only 6% ! We're better. So, I says to myself, "Myself, I says, what is the real measure of the best college?"  And it became clear: The best college is the one everyone wants to copy!" And then I asked myself, "How do you do that?"  "Why," I replied, "by copying the name." So here are the most common names of colleges in America.  As you can see, Columbia College and Bryan University are duking it out for the top spot.  If DeVry got their act together, they could win every year, as an informal analysis says there are about a bazillion of them. So, sorry Duke (if that is your real name.)  Clearly, no one wants to be associated with the likes of you.