by Leigh Moore
Feb 20, 2025
**Important: the viz below will remain public through April 30, 2025.
Great news: According to Jill Barshay, of The Hechinger Report, IPEDS and College Scorecard have survived DOGE's cuts. Unfortunately, the metrics remain pretty inaccessible to folks without a data background. (Continued below viz)
Case in point: earnings data is provided on the College Scorecard website, and "it," as in the aggregate, is easier to locate and download than IPEDS data. On the other hand, "it," as in whatever one might be looking for, is a different story. Whatever data is sought is nestled within 173 columns and (wait for it) 229,188 rows. And everything is coded.
(I'm not complaining, by the way. The intricacies I describe constitute an obvious need, and I've been glad to fill it.)
The visualization above comes from those 38M cells. I've created it to include only bachelor's earnings 5 years post-graduation. Hovering above each bar will provide a view like this:
If you know any families seeking this data, please shoot them this link. I'll keep it up for a couple of months.
Until next time,
Leigh