Introducing Higher Ed Data Central

Education Sector is pleased to unveil Higher Ed Data Central, a new analytical tool for higher education. We think it can help deepen our understanding of higher education by allowing us to combine, organize, and analyze data from a variety of sources (such as the Department of Education’s IPEDS and DAS, USNWR, and other ED data). For the rest of this week, we’ll be highlighting several of the capabilities of this new tool:

Capability #1: Examine Traditional Issues

Capability #2: Custom Groupings

Capability #3: Under-Examined Data

Capability #4: Combine with Other Data Sources

Capability #5: Develop Input-Adjusted Measures

The first capability of this tool allows us to find answers to more common issues and questions in higher education. For example, how much has tuition grown over time? As the chart below shows, tuition has been rising rapidly. Typical tuition at a four-year, public university is twice as much today as it was in the mid-1990s, even after correcting for inflation.

As another example of this capability, what can we say about the concentration of Pell grant students at private four-year universities? The chart below shows that there are more than 200 private universities where fewer than 20 percent of students receive Pell grants.

Tomorrow we will examine the second capability of our new analytical tool: custom groupings.

Photo Credit: Jay Lopez