Higher Ed Data Stories

Attainment has always been an interesting topic for me, every since I first got stunned into disbelief when I looked at the data over time.  Even looking at shorter periods can lead to some revelations that many don't make sense at first. Here is the latest data from NCES, published in the Digest of Education Statistics . Please note that this is for informational purposes only, and I've not even attempted to visualize the standard errors in this data, which vary from state-to-state.  There are four views year, all looking at educational attainment by state in 2012 and 2022.   The first shows data on a map: Choose the year, and choose the level of attainment.  Note that the top three categories can be confusing: BA means a Bachelor's degree only; Grad degree means at least a Master's (or higher, of course); and BA or more presumably combines those two.  Again, standard errors might mean the numbers don't always add up perfectly. The second shows the data o...

This now-annual post is one that boggles and befuddles people, especially those who think that your yield rate is something you control by flipping switches.  In reality, yield rate is controlled by something much more powerful: Algebra. First, let's review what yield rate is:  Colleges get applications, and they admit a certain percentage of them.  In aggregate colleges admit the vast majority of applicants.  Even though this visualization shows an aggregate admit rate of 58.3% in 2023 (the red line at bottom left), the set of colleges in the data only include colleges required to report to IPEDS; this excludes community colleges and any other institution that considers itself an Open Admissions institution. Of that 58%, some percentage enroll, and that's called the yield rate.  As you can see, the yield rate (the purple line at bottom center) has been falling every single year since 2001.  This is a function of math.  Applications (the orange bars at...

This is a popular post each year with high school and independent counselors working with students who are already thinking about a doctorate.  It shows the undergraduate institutions of doctoral recipients from 1958 to 2023.  (It does not show where the doctorate was earned, to be clear.) It's based on data I downloaded from the National Science Foundation using their custom tool .  It's a little clunky, and--this is important--it classifies academic areas differently before 2020 and after, but with a little (OK, a lot) of data wrangling over the long weekend, we have something for the data junkies out there. This is for fun and entertainment only, because, as I indicated, the categories are not quite the same, and for the sake of clarity, I had to combine similar (but not identical) disciplines. There are two views, using the tabs across the top.  The "All Data" view allows you to filter to your heart's content.  The purple boxes allow you to limit the type o...