Last reviewed August 26, 2026
What is the Common Data Set
Colleges publish a yearly report of admissions, cost, and financial aid. It's called the Common Data Set. We keep those reports public and turn them into pages you can search, compare, and share.
What it is
In the late 1990s, schools and guidebook publishers agreed on one form so every college wasn't answering the same questions fifteen ways. The Common Data Set Initiative still publishes that template. Filling it out is voluntary. There is no central filing cabinet. Each school posts a file, or doesn't.
What's in it
About a thousand comparable facts, in sections A through J.
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| A · General Information | Name, calendar, degrees, respondent contact. |
| B · Enrollment and Persistence | Headcount, race/ethnicity, retention, graduation rates. |
| C · First-time, first-year admission | Applicants, admits, enrolled, tests, wait list, ED/EA. |
| D · Transfer admission | Transfer funnel and requirements. |
| E · Academic offerings | Special programs and policies. |
| F · Student life | Housing, activities, percent in-state. |
| G · Annual expenses | Tuition, fees, food and housing. |
| H · Financial aid | Need and non-need packages, H2A merit counts. |
| I · Faculty and class size | Student-faculty ratio, class-size bands. |
| J · Degrees conferred | Disciplinary areas of degrees awarded. |
How to use it here
- Search a school, open a year, read the facts, download the original file.
- Counselors: send the year page, not a 47-page PDF. The official file is on the same page, so you aren't asking a family to trust a scrape.
- IR / researchers: the extract uses the template's field IDs; the API and GitHub repo are the portable copy. Contribute a missing year from the school page.
We don't replace the school, or the feds
The numbers are the college's, as the school published them. We aren't IPEDS and we aren't College Scorecard. Those are different systems with different calendars. On this site they stay labeled.