State Report Cards

Some states finance their higher education systems better than others. There are also a number of different ways to measure how a state supports its colleges and universities. That's why looking at a single, aggregated statistic doesn't give you a clear picture a states' performance. 

Another problem is presenting individual state statistics without context. Is $5,600 a lot for a state to spend per college college student? It's actually below average, but without a baseline to compare to, you probably won't get a lot out of that statistic on its own.  

That's why we graded every state based on its recent and current state budget support for higher education. To compare the states, we indexed the data to a score out of 100 percent and visualized in an easy to understand report card. Recognizing that there are different ways to make college affordable, we organized the grades into categories like tuition and state financial aid. For the full methodology, click here, or check out the Example Report Card below.

For a table of all 50 states and their final grades, click here.

What is a state report card?


Showing 2 reactions

commented 2015-01-11 02:58:56 -0500
This is an excellent resource! Thank you all very much – and as a suggestion you might consider putting some social media buttons on the site, like Twitter, FB, etc.
commented 2014-03-14 16:42:08 -0400
Your appropriations are for all of Higher ed. but that includes community colleges. But you seem to be interested in only 4-year colleges. This is a problem. Can you do this for CCs as well? does not solve your problem but you might see some interesting differences. Good effort so far. R Romano