Shutdown Got Your Data? Check Out Our Federal Education Database

The federal government has been officially shut down for over two weeks now, and the impact has been real: furloughed employees across the country, Head Start programs shut down (and some reopened), and confusion and delays in many federal programs. But for education experts and data geeks, another issue has been highly inconvenient, if less severe: the disabling of federal education data websites.

Fortunately, Higher Ed Watch’s sister initiative, the Federal Education Budget Project, maintains one of the most comprehensive federal education databases in the country for every state, school district, and institution of higher education. The data are collected from state and federal sources and updated regularly. The higher education data cover more than 7,500 institutions and all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and include:

• Tuition and fees, price, endowment, and net price for all and for low-income students;
• Federal finance data on student loan recipients and disbursements for schools, as well as Pell Grant and other federal aid data;
• Student demographics, including full-time, part-time, and graduate student enrollment, as well as racial subgroups;
• Outcomes as defined by graduation rates, retention rates, student loan default rates, and repayment rates; and
• The share of students receiving federal, state, and local financial aid, as well as the average award size.

Check it out now, and until the shutdown is over! For some background on the data and on other education policy topics, check out our Background & Analysis pages.