CollegeStudent.com exists to answer the questions that admissions materials tend to leave out: what a degree will actually cost after aid, who teaches the introductory courses, whether daily life is possible without a car, and where graduates go to work.
What we publish
Every college profile follows the same twelve-part structure: education, tuition and cost, faculty, location and walk score, things to do, graduate degrees, jobs and outcomes, internships, alumni, teams, scholarships, and a direct line to the admissions office. Because the structure never changes, a family can read two profiles and compare them without translating between formats. The same figures power the side-by-side comparison tool, the near-me search, and the state directories.
Alongside the profiles we maintain a national scholarship calendar, the headline award at each school, and a library of guides on choosing, paying for, and applying to college.
Methodology
Profiles are assembled from public sources: the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, each institution's Common Data Set and published cost of attendance, athletic conference records, and first-destination surveys released by career services offices.
- Tuition and fees are the published rates for the current academic year before any aid. Net prices vary by family, so we point readers to each school's net price calculator rather than estimate for them.
- Acceptance and graduation rates are the most recent institutional figures; graduation is the six-year rate for first-time, full-time students.
- Walk score describes the main campus address on the 0 to 100 Walk Score scale.
- Starting salary, employment and internship rates come from each institution's most recent first-destination survey where published. Where a school has not published a figure, we note an estimate and flag it for verification.
- Alumni counts are the institution's own reported figure for living graduates, rounded.
Each profile is reviewed by an editor before publication and re-checked at the start of every academic year. When a figure is an estimate rather than a reported value, the profile says so.
Editorial independence
CollegeStudent.com does not accept payment for placement, ranking, or favorable treatment. Colleges cannot buy their way onto a page or edit their own profile. When a school requests information about a student, that student has asked for it through the form on the school's page.
Corrections
If a figure is out of date or incorrect, use the data submission form and include a source. Submissions from institutional staff are prioritized. Verified changes are applied to the profile, typically within one week, and the profile's update date is refreshed.
Privacy
Information submitted through a request form is used to respond to that request. It is shared with a college only when the reader has asked for that college's materials, and it is never sold or rented to third parties. Location data used by the near-me search is processed for the request and not stored.
Contact
Editorial and data questions, media requests, and institution or partnership inquiries all go through the contact form; choose the matching topic and the right editor picks it up. Colleges correcting a figure should use Correct a figure so the change is tracked.