Higher Ed Data Stories

I saw an opinion piece in Insider Higher Ed this week, and this statistic jumped out at me:  Four-year institutions are graduating a third more women than men.  It's not that the statistic was surprising, of course.  Almost everyone who has looked at higher ed data knows the increasing educational attainment of women has been one of most notable trends in our profession.  (Of course, the real story is the reason women didn't have higher attainment prior up until now.) If you look at this NCES Digest of Education Statistics table, and do a little math, you can see the trend for yourself. In 1970, women made up only 35% of all college enrollment; by 1988, that figure had risen to 50%, and by 2019, it was 60%. This trend mirrors bachelor's degrees as well.  In 2019, about 58% of BAs were awarded to women, and 42% to men.  While the trend is remarkably consistent across all Carnegie types, regions, and levels of control, the statistics between and among individual institution

There is almost nothing that enrollment managers and CFOs and trustees talk about at private universities these days more than discount rates.  Because, as I wrote recently , colleges are not-for-profits, but they're not charities; they need revenue to keep the business running because electric bills, faculty salaries, and test tubes are all paid for in cash. And while I no longer work at a private university, this is still important because the financial health of one sector affects all other members of the industry in some way.  This is important information for you to know. Discount rate determines how much cash you actually receive from each student after you award institutional financial aid.  If you understand discount, you can skip over the blue section below and go right to the explanation of the visualization.  If not, here's how EM people think about it.  Don't worry if you're confused; it is a difficult concept to understand. You charge a tuition.  And you of