Yes, Enrollment is Going Down. Also up.

When designing a data visualization, the first thing to ask is, "What does the viewer want to see, or need to know?" If you're designing a dashboard for a CFO or a CEO or a VP for Marketing, those things are pretty straight forward: You're designing for one person and you have a pretty good idea what that person wants.

But in higher education, we want to look at segments of the industry, and trends that are specific to our sector. And there are thousands of you (if this blog post is average, that is). So I can't know.

This visualization of enrollment data measures only one thing: Enrollment. But it measures several different types of enrollment (full-time, part-time, graduate, and undergraduate, in combination) at many different types of institutions (doctoral, baccalaureate, public, private, etc.) And the best thing is that you can make it yours with a few clicks.

The top chart shows total headcount, and the bottom shows percentage change since the first year selected. If you want to change the years, or change the types of enrollment, or the universe of the colleges selected, use the gray boxes at the right. At any time, use the lavender box at top right to change the breakouts of the charts: To color by region, or grad/undergrad, or any other variable listed.

There are lots of interesting trends here, some of which will help you realize that while enrollment may be declining, it's not declining everywhere, or for every type of institution.

See something interesting? Post in the comments below.

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The Highly Rejective Colleges

If you're not following Akil Bello on Twitter, you should be. His timeline is filled with great insights about standardized testing, and he takes great effort to point out racism (both subtle and not-so-subtle) in higher education, all while throwing in references to the Knicks and his daughter Enid, making the experience interesting, compelling, and sometimes, fun. Recently, he created the term " highly rejective colleges " as a more apt description for what are otherwise called "highly selective colleges." As I've said before, a college that admits 15% of applicants really has a rejections office, not an admissions office. The term appears to have taken off on Twitter, and I hope it will stick. So I took a look at the highly rejectives (really, that's all I'm going to call them from now on) and found some interesting patterns in the data. Take a look: The 1,132 four-year, private colleges and universities with admissions data in IPEDS are incl

Freshman Migration, 1986 to 2020

(Note: I discovered that in IPEDS, Penn State Main Campus now reports with "The Pennsylvania State University" as one system. So when you'd look at things over time, Penn State would have data until 2018, and then The Penn....etc would show up in 2020. I found out Penn State main campus still reports its own data on the website, so I went there, and edited the IPEDS data by hand. So if you noticed that error, it should be corrected now, but I'm not sure what I'll do in years going forward.) Freshman migration to and from the states is always a favorite visualization of mine, both because I find it a compelling and interesting topic, and because I had a few breakthroughs with calculated variables the first time I tried to do it. If you're a loyal reader, you know what this shows: The number of freshman and their movement between the states. And if you're a loyal viewer and you use this for your work in your business, please consider supporting the costs

The College Finder

Note: A few people have commented on slow loading with the visualization. If you have troubles, click here to be taken right to the visualization . It should open in a new tab and you can follow along from there. This is always a popular post with high school counselors, IECs, parents, and students who are looking for general information on degrees awarded, or a very specific combination of academic programs, location, and other institutional characteristics. It uses IPEDS data I downloaded as soon as I can when it became available (and before a looming government shutdown), and shows all 1,700 majors recognized by the federal government in the IPEDS system, using CIP codes, and the number of degrees awarded by college in any selected area. For instance, you might have a question about which college awards the most degrees in French Language and Literature: A few clicks, and you find it's the University of Arizona. If you want a colder climate, choose the Great Lakes region,

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