The Role of Gender in Admissions

Last September, the New York Times ran an article about Tulane University’s efforts to rebalance its gender ratio in admissions by targeting more male applicants. This prompted our team to investigate what, if any, role gender plays in admissions. Our review of the Common Data Set from the large research …

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Finances Among Top Ranked Colleges and Universities

The Forbes 2023 College Financial Grades report paints a largely positive picture of the financial health of America’s elite higher education institutions. Remarkably, 93% of the colleges and universities that ranked in the top 100, according to US News and World Report’s classifications of liberal arts colleges or national universities, …

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Most Diverse Colleges



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Technical Degrees Often Take More than Four Years

Students often expect to complete their undergraduate study in four years, but an analysis of the Common Data Set shows that spending an additional year or two is not uncommon.

At a group of selected technical universities (listed in the graph below), the median four-year graduation rate is 69%. This …

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Tuition Increase

Over the past decade, tuition has increased by between 40 and 50 percent, for an average annual increase of 3.2%. In the 2022-2023 academic year, most colleges and universities increased their tuition by between 3 and 5%. Some of the highest percentage increases among schools were at the University of …

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Best ROI: Comparing Tuition and Salary

As college tuition rises, many are asking: is it worth it? In our research of the question, we selected a number of universities across the United States and compared the cost of tuition with early-career (0-5 years) and mid-career (10+ years) salaries earned by graduates.

Given the lower cost of …

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US News Changes Methodology Behind Annual Rankings

The annual release of the U.S. News Best Colleges list came with new methodologies for ranking schools. While the recent change in approach includes parameters such as faculty salaries and rank, the most controversial change focuses on test scores during the pandemic.

Colleges reporting less than 50% of their admitted …

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