How Admissions Has Changed, in One Chart

I frequently hear that the interactive charts I publish are too confusing or time-consuming, and that it's hard to get the story out of them without some work. So today, I'm making it easier for you, for two reasons: First, this is real student data, not summaries: Each dot represents a student who applied for financial aid, so I'd never publish that data on the web; this is just a good, old-fashioned picture of a chart.  Second, in this case, one chart tells the whole story.

The population here is all freshman financial aid applicants who completed a FAFSA but did not have need.

Each column is one year, and each dot in that column represents a student; higher positions in the column show higher income, from zero to one million dollars in parental AGI (adjusted gross income).  This is arrayed in a box-and-whiskers, or box plot.  The yellow boxes show the limits of the middle 50% of the distribution (the "box") with the color break representing the median.  The top whisker (the black horizontal lines) represent the 75th percentile.  In other words, 25% of the applicants have incomes above that line.  The bottom whisker is the lowest 25th percent. Yes, there are people with very low incomes who do not qualify for need-based aid, usually due to large asset bases.

Note the way the black line rises over time, from about $430,000 in 2007 to almost $600,000 in the last two years.  There are several possible explanations for this, all of which are probably valid to some extent.

• It's a buyer's market, and college recruitment activities have brought in people who are shopping in more places
• People who never would have applied for aid in prior years are doing so, because the crisis of 2007 has evaporated many assets, like home equity, that people might have used to pay for college
• Other colleges are requiring a FAFSA for merit aid consideration so we get the FAFSA as a residual.  No one, it seems, is opposed to trying to get a lower cost
• Colleges are so afraid of losing someone due to price considerations they encourage everyone to "give it a shot" and see if they are eligible.

One note: In 2014 we had 31 applicants whose income was $1,000,000 or more who are not shown here, and who would have brought the distribution up. These people used to show up in prior years as $999,999 dollars, so I took them out for equal comparisons. And, in anticipation of the next bump, we did have one family who reported an AGI of $9,999,999 for 2014 when they completed the FAFSA.

This post shows Financial Aid data, but the title says it's about how admissions has changed. What do you think? How are the two related?

Maret 2015 - Hallo sahabat The secret, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul Maret 2015, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.

Judul : How Admissions Has Changed, in One Chart
link : How Admissions Has Changed, in One Chart

Maret 2015

I frequently hear that the interactive charts I publish are too confusing or time-consuming, and that it's hard to get the story out of them without some work. So today, I'm making it easier for you, for two reasons: First, this is real student data, not summaries: Each dot represents a student who applied for financial aid, so I'd never publish that data on the web; this is just a good, old-fashioned picture of a chart.  Second, in this case, one chart tells the whole story.

The population here is all freshman financial aid applicants who completed a FAFSA but did not have need.

Each column is one year, and each dot in that column represents a student; higher positions in the column show higher income, from zero to one million dollars in parental AGI (adjusted gross income).  This is arrayed in a box-and-whiskers, or box plot.  The yellow boxes show the limits of the middle 50% of the distribution (the "box") with the color break representing the median.  The top whisker (the black horizontal lines) represent the 75th percentile.  In other words, 25% of the applicants have incomes above that line.  The bottom whisker is the lowest 25th percent. Yes, there are people with very low incomes who do not qualify for need-based aid, usually due to large asset bases.

Note the way the black line rises over time, from about $430,000 in 2007 to almost $600,000 in the last two years.  There are several possible explanations for this, all of which are probably valid to some extent.

• It's a buyer's market, and college recruitment activities have brought in people who are shopping in more places
• People who never would have applied for aid in prior years are doing so, because the crisis of 2007 has evaporated many assets, like home equity, that people might have used to pay for college
• Other colleges are requiring a FAFSA for merit aid consideration so we get the FAFSA as a residual.  No one, it seems, is opposed to trying to get a lower cost
• Colleges are so afraid of losing someone due to price considerations they encourage everyone to "give it a shot" and see if they are eligible.

One note: In 2014 we had 31 applicants whose income was $1,000,000 or more who are not shown here, and who would have brought the distribution up. These people used to show up in prior years as $999,999 dollars, so I took them out for equal comparisons. And, in anticipation of the next bump, we did have one family who reported an AGI of $9,999,999 for 2014 when they completed the FAFSA.

This post shows Financial Aid data, but the title says it's about how admissions has changed. What do you think? How are the two related?

Read More

Application Fees

Ever since my first day in admissions, I've had a big problem with the concept of college application fees.  They just seem odd to me: You pay some amount of money for the privilege of being considered for admission, often not certain you'll attend if you are.  And if you're not admitted, you're out of luck.

I understand those who support the concept, in concept: Students shouldn't apply to a lot of colleges, and they should be somewhat serious about the colleges they apply to.  Except we know that doesn't happen.  The counselor at my kids' school said a few years ago one student applied to 46, and the Fast Apps, Snap Apps, and VIP apps all encourage students to apply to places just because they can.

I also realize that there are costs associated with processing applications, although those costs have dropped pretty dramatically in the past several years, especially when all the documents come in electronically. But all the costs of doing business are paid for by the students who pay tuition, and, presumably, more applications is good for the college they attend.

There may be other models where this system is used, but I'm not able to come up with any.  All I can think about is having to pay $50 just to walk onto the Toyota lot and shop for cars (which is hardly a perfect analogy, either.)

Too often in the discussion about things like "admit to deny," people will point out that app fees from students who have little chance of being admitted are a revenue source for colleges.  Technically yes, but actually no. At most institutions, it's about 1/10th of 1% of total revenue.

So, take a look at what colleges charge to apply.  This visualization starts with just under 2,000 four-year colleges and universities, each represented by a dot.  IPEDS apparently list the highest fee a college charges when there are multiple levels.

Hover over the dot for details.  The bar chart at the bottom shows the breakouts as a percent of total. Use the filters on the right to show a smaller set of colleges.

What do you notice?

Maret 2015 - Hallo sahabat The secret, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul Maret 2015, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.

Judul : Application Fees
link : Application Fees

Maret 2015

Ever since my first day in admissions, I've had a big problem with the concept of college application fees.  They just seem odd to me: You pay some amount of money for the privilege of being considered for admission, often not certain you'll attend if you are.  And if you're not admitted, you're out of luck.

I understand those who support the concept, in concept: Students shouldn't apply to a lot of colleges, and they should be somewhat serious about the colleges they apply to.  Except we know that doesn't happen.  The counselor at my kids' school said a few years ago one student applied to 46, and the Fast Apps, Snap Apps, and VIP apps all encourage students to apply to places just because they can.

I also realize that there are costs associated with processing applications, although those costs have dropped pretty dramatically in the past several years, especially when all the documents come in electronically. But all the costs of doing business are paid for by the students who pay tuition, and, presumably, more applications is good for the college they attend.

There may be other models where this system is used, but I'm not able to come up with any.  All I can think about is having to pay $50 just to walk onto the Toyota lot and shop for cars (which is hardly a perfect analogy, either.)

Too often in the discussion about things like "admit to deny," people will point out that app fees from students who have little chance of being admitted are a revenue source for colleges.  Technically yes, but actually no. At most institutions, it's about 1/10th of 1% of total revenue.

So, take a look at what colleges charge to apply.  This visualization starts with just under 2,000 four-year colleges and universities, each represented by a dot.  IPEDS apparently list the highest fee a college charges when there are multiple levels.

Hover over the dot for details.  The bar chart at the bottom shows the breakouts as a percent of total. Use the filters on the right to show a smaller set of colleges.

What do you notice?

Read More

Another Way of Looking at Graduation Rates

Another article appeared in my Facebook feed about college ROI, although it was called the 50 Best Private Colleges for Earning Your Degree on Time.   As is often the case, there is nothing really wrong with the facts of the article: You see a nice little table showing the 50 Colleges with the highest graduation rate.

But it got me to thinking: What if high graduation rate wasn't enough?  What if a considerable portion of your freshman class that graduates takes longer than four years to do so? Is that a good deal?  Let's take some hypotheticals:

College A: 1000 freshmen, 800 who graduate within four years, 900 who graduate in five, and 950 who graduate in six.  So the four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates are 80%, 90%, and 95%.  But of the 950 who eventually graduate, only 84.2% do so in four years.

College B: 1000 freshmen, 750 who graduate within four years, 775 who graduate in five, and 800 who graduate in six.  So the four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates are 75%, 77.5%, and 80%. Thus, of the 800 who eventually graduate, almost 94% do so in four years.

College C: 1000 freshmen, 550 who graduate within four years, 600 who graduate in five, and 625 who graduate in six.  So the four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates are 55%, 60%, and 62.5%. Of the 625 who eventually graduate, 88% do so in four years.

If you were choosing among these three colleges, which might you choose?  The easy money says you go with College A, the one with the highest graduation rate. College B would be your second choice, and C would be your third.  But what if you are absolutely, positively certain you'll graduate from the college you choose? College B is first, then College C, then College A.

Data can be tricky.  And as I've written many times, things like graduation rates are really almost inputs, not outputs: If you choose wealthy, well-educated students, you're going to have higher graduation rates.  It's a classic case of making a silk purse out of, well, silk.

I've tried to demonstrate this in this visualization, and I like the simplicity here.  Each dot is a college (hover over it for details).  They're in boxes based on the average freshman ACT score across the top, and the percentage of students with Pell along the side.  The dots are colored by four-year graduation rates, and you should see right away the pattern that emerges.  Red dots (top right) tend to be selective colleges with fewer poor students.

But if you want to look at the chance a graduate will finish in four years, use the filter at the bottom right.  Find a number you like, pull the left slider up to it, and see who remains.  (Just a note: I'm a little suspicious of any number of 100% on this scale, which would mean absolutely no students who graduate take longer than four years to do so.  It might be true, but it's hard to believe. But I'd set the right slider to 99% at the most.)  Remember, there's a lot of bad IPEDS data out there, so don't place any bar bets on what you see here.

What do you see?

Maret 2015 - Hallo sahabat The secret, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul Maret 2015, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.

Judul : Another Way of Looking at Graduation Rates
link : Another Way of Looking at Graduation Rates

Maret 2015

Another article appeared in my Facebook feed about college ROI, although it was called the 50 Best Private Colleges for Earning Your Degree on Time.   As is often the case, there is nothing really wrong with the facts of the article: You see a nice little table showing the 50 Colleges with the highest graduation rate.

But it got me to thinking: What if high graduation rate wasn't enough?  What if a considerable portion of your freshman class that graduates takes longer than four years to do so? Is that a good deal?  Let's take some hypotheticals:

College A: 1000 freshmen, 800 who graduate within four years, 900 who graduate in five, and 950 who graduate in six.  So the four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates are 80%, 90%, and 95%.  But of the 950 who eventually graduate, only 84.2% do so in four years.

College B: 1000 freshmen, 750 who graduate within four years, 775 who graduate in five, and 800 who graduate in six.  So the four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates are 75%, 77.5%, and 80%. Thus, of the 800 who eventually graduate, almost 94% do so in four years.

College C: 1000 freshmen, 550 who graduate within four years, 600 who graduate in five, and 625 who graduate in six.  So the four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates are 55%, 60%, and 62.5%. Of the 625 who eventually graduate, 88% do so in four years.

If you were choosing among these three colleges, which might you choose?  The easy money says you go with College A, the one with the highest graduation rate. College B would be your second choice, and C would be your third.  But what if you are absolutely, positively certain you'll graduate from the college you choose? College B is first, then College C, then College A.

Data can be tricky.  And as I've written many times, things like graduation rates are really almost inputs, not outputs: If you choose wealthy, well-educated students, you're going to have higher graduation rates.  It's a classic case of making a silk purse out of, well, silk.

I've tried to demonstrate this in this visualization, and I like the simplicity here.  Each dot is a college (hover over it for details).  They're in boxes based on the average freshman ACT score across the top, and the percentage of students with Pell along the side.  The dots are colored by four-year graduation rates, and you should see right away the pattern that emerges.  Red dots (top right) tend to be selective colleges with fewer poor students.

But if you want to look at the chance a graduate will finish in four years, use the filter at the bottom right.  Find a number you like, pull the left slider up to it, and see who remains.  (Just a note: I'm a little suspicious of any number of 100% on this scale, which would mean absolutely no students who graduate take longer than four years to do so.  It might be true, but it's hard to believe. But I'd set the right slider to 99% at the most.)  Remember, there's a lot of bad IPEDS data out there, so don't place any bar bets on what you see here.

What do you see?

Read More

Top 10 Songs of March 2015

Here are my favorite songs from last month February 2015 and this month. Since the list can't be completed last month, I decided to make it this month instead.

1. I Want You To Know - Zedd feat. Selena Gomez

2. One Last Time - Ariana Grande

3. Four Five Seconds - Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney

4. I Bet - Ciara 

5. Glory - Common and John Legend

6. Style - Taylor

7.  Somebody - Natalie La Rose

8. I Really Like You - Carly Rae Jepsen

9. Feel The Light - Jennifer Lopez

10. Toward The Sun - Rihanna

Maret 2015 - Hallo sahabat The secret, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul Maret 2015, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan Artikel ariana grande, Artikel carly rae jepsen, Artikel jennifer lopez, Artikel one last time, Artikel rihanna, Artikel selena gomez, Artikel style taylor swift, Artikel top 10 songs march 2015, Artikel zedd, yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.

Judul : Top 10 Songs of March 2015
link : Top 10 Songs of March 2015

Maret 2015

Here are my favorite songs from last month February 2015 and this month. Since the list can't be completed last month, I decided to make it this month instead.

1. I Want You To Know - Zedd feat. Selena Gomez

2. One Last Time - Ariana Grande

3. Four Five Seconds - Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney

4. I Bet - Ciara 

5. Glory - Common and John Legend

6. Style - Taylor

7.  Somebody - Natalie La Rose

8. I Really Like You - Carly Rae Jepsen

9. Feel The Light - Jennifer Lopez

10. Toward The Sun - Rihanna

Read More

Are we all doomed?

If you follow media following higher education, you know that for a while, many have been (somewhat gleefully) predicting the demise of the whole industry.  High costs, MOOCs, a weak job market, and shrinking confidence in the value of a college degree are all conspiring, they would say, to create a perfect storm that will be the end of us all.

I'm not saying these people are wrong;  you can get in trouble arguing with self-proclaimed prophets, and until something either comes to fruition or it doesn't, all you have is a lot of heated discussion. Personally, I take exception to the smugness of some who seem to revel in their predictions.

But that is, as they say, why they make chocolate and vanilla.

The heat (if not the light) increased this week when Sweet Briar College in Virginia announced it was closing.  The pundits came out of the woodwork, proclaiming that this was just the first domino to fall, all the time apparently reveling in this presumptive proof of their collective acumen in predicting such things.

But a look at publicly available data makes it hard to predict such things; many colleges soldier on despite numbers that make them look vulnerable, while a college like Sweet Briar, which occupied a pretty good position on the second chart, below, found itself a victim of the most obvious college problem, namely enrollment that was not large enough to support itself.

You might think that Sweet Briar is the first of many.  You could say the industry is collapsing.  And you might be right.

But it seems there is nothing a prophet likes to point at more than evidence he might be right.  There is no one saying (yet) some of the other possible reasons things might have gone south, even though there is much more attention paid to this college than the one per month that has closed since 1969. If it later turns out (and I have no reason to believe it will) that this was a board with no vision, or a horrible case of mismanagement, or one of dozens of other possible reasons we can point to, the pundits are unlikely to correct what they're suggesting today.

So take a look at this.  On the first chart, you can see the array of colleges and universities, and with a click of a bubble, find out who's where.  On the second, you can put any college in context with a couple of clicks.  Have fun. Don't get too worked up over what you see.  It's not destiny.

As for me, I'll tell you what Mark Twain once said: “I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”  And I'm sticking to it.

Note: It's important to remember that IPEDS data that this is built with contains errors on occasion; don't make any bar bets on what you see here, and if your institution is incorrectly listed, take it up with your IR office.

Maret 2015 - Hallo sahabat The secret, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul Maret 2015, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.

Judul : Are we all doomed?
link : Are we all doomed?

Maret 2015

If you follow media following higher education, you know that for a while, many have been (somewhat gleefully) predicting the demise of the whole industry.  High costs, MOOCs, a weak job market, and shrinking confidence in the value of a college degree are all conspiring, they would say, to create a perfect storm that will be the end of us all.

I'm not saying these people are wrong;  you can get in trouble arguing with self-proclaimed prophets, and until something either comes to fruition or it doesn't, all you have is a lot of heated discussion. Personally, I take exception to the smugness of some who seem to revel in their predictions.

But that is, as they say, why they make chocolate and vanilla.

The heat (if not the light) increased this week when Sweet Briar College in Virginia announced it was closing.  The pundits came out of the woodwork, proclaiming that this was just the first domino to fall, all the time apparently reveling in this presumptive proof of their collective acumen in predicting such things.

But a look at publicly available data makes it hard to predict such things; many colleges soldier on despite numbers that make them look vulnerable, while a college like Sweet Briar, which occupied a pretty good position on the second chart, below, found itself a victim of the most obvious college problem, namely enrollment that was not large enough to support itself.

You might think that Sweet Briar is the first of many.  You could say the industry is collapsing.  And you might be right.

But it seems there is nothing a prophet likes to point at more than evidence he might be right.  There is no one saying (yet) some of the other possible reasons things might have gone south, even though there is much more attention paid to this college than the one per month that has closed since 1969. If it later turns out (and I have no reason to believe it will) that this was a board with no vision, or a horrible case of mismanagement, or one of dozens of other possible reasons we can point to, the pundits are unlikely to correct what they're suggesting today.

So take a look at this.  On the first chart, you can see the array of colleges and universities, and with a click of a bubble, find out who's where.  On the second, you can put any college in context with a couple of clicks.  Have fun. Don't get too worked up over what you see.  It's not destiny.

As for me, I'll tell you what Mark Twain once said: “I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”  And I'm sticking to it.

Note: It's important to remember that IPEDS data that this is built with contains errors on occasion; don't make any bar bets on what you see here, and if your institution is incorrectly listed, take it up with your IR office.

Read More