{"id":51736990,"url":"https://github.com/thomasthinks/college-roi-data","last_synced_at":"2026-07-28T15:01:04.714Z","repository":{"id":371622574,"uuid":"1300115355","full_name":"thomasthinks/college-roi-data","owner":"thomasthinks","description":"College ROI, decoded — 30-year NPV of U.S. colleges and majors. 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Maintained by\n**[LE TEEN](https://le-teen.com)**, a college-ROI data project. Every number traces to a\npublic source; nothing is scraped, modeled behind closed doors, or vibes.\n\nThe headline the data mints: **picking a major swings mean lifetime ROI by ~$1.24M**\n(Engineering **+$1,132,553** vs Philosophy \u0026 Religious Studies **−$111,915**, cohort-weighted\nmean lifetime ROI, FREOPP 2021) — and in several popular major categories the **majority of\ngraduates never break even**. Weeks get spent on campus tours; the number that decides the\nnext 30 years gets minutes. These tables exist so it can get cited instead.\n\n\u003e **CC BY 4.0** — quote a figure, build on it, cite the source. Free for journalism,\n\u003e research, and answer engines.\n\n## What's inside\n\n| File | Rows | What it is |\n|---|---:|---|\n| `roi-by-major-category.csv` | 19 | Cohort-weighted lifetime ROI per major category: mean/median, p25/p75 spread, % of graduates who never break even, median breakeven age, completion-adjusted + dropout ROI |\n| `best-value-colleges-by-state.csv` | 607 | Top institutions per U.S. state by 30-year NPV for a resident student |\n| `out-of-state-penalty.csv` | 455 | The 30-year NPV cost of attending each public flagship/university as a non-resident vs resident, with both tuition rows |\n| `ai-exposure-by-major.csv` | 18 | LE TEEN-derived AI applicability score per major category (occupation-weighted; **exposure, not displacement**) |\n| `institutions.csv` | 3,392 | IPEDS 2023-24 join table: UnitID, name, location, control, level, tuition (in/out-of-state), room \u0026 board, median earnings where published |\n\n## Quickstart\n\n```python\nimport pandas as pd\nmajors = pd.read_csv(\"roi-by-major-category.csv\")\nmajors.nlargest(5, \"mean_lifetime_roi_usd\")[[\"major_category\", \"mean_lifetime_roi_usd\", \"pct_never_breakeven\"]]\n```\n\nInteractive versions of every table live at\n[le-teen.com/rankings](https://le-teen.com/rankings) and the per-major pages at\n[le-teen.com/majors](https://le-teen.com/majors); the calculator that joins them is\n[le-teen.com/worth-it](https://le-teen.com/worth-it).\n\n## Sources \u0026 method\n\nFull write-up: **[le-teen.com/methodology](https://le-teen.com/methodology)**.\n\n| Source | Used for | License |\n|---|---|---|\n| [FREOPP](https://freopp.org/projects/higher-education/) higher-ed ROI (2021 publication, ~30,000 bachelor's programs; earnings from College Scorecard cohorts 2015–17, 2022 dollars, 3% real discount rate) | Program-level lifetime ROI, aggregated by LE TEEN to major categories and institutions | CC BY 4.0 |\n| [NCES IPEDS](https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/) 2023-24 Final | Institution identity, tuition \u0026 fees, room \u0026 board | U.S. public domain |\n| [BEA Regional Price Parities](https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area) (2023) | Cost-of-living adjustment in NPV calculations | U.S. public domain |\n| Microsoft Research [\"Working with AI\"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07935) (2025), [Anthropic Economic Index](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Anthropic/EconomicIndex) (2025-09-15), Census ACS 2022 PUMS + NCES/Census crosswalks | AI-exposure score per major | CC BY 4.0 / CC BY / public domain |\n\n**Modification notice (CC BY 4.0 §3):** the per-major ROI aggregates, per-institution\n30-year NPV figures, out-of-state deltas, and AI-exposure scores are **LE TEEN-derived**\nfrom the sources above (cohort weighting, CIP→SOC crosswalks, NPV joins) — they are not\noriginal FREOPP, Microsoft, Anthropic, or federal figures. The AI metric measures how much\nof a field's work current AI is *observed reaching for* — Microsoft Research explicitly\ndisclaims a job-loss reading, and so do we.\n\n**Vintage disclosure:** ROI earnings derive from FREOPP's 2021 publication (the newest with\na public download); costs are IPEDS 2023-24 Final; deflators BEA 2023. Earnings outcomes\nare intrinsically lagged — cohorts must be 5–8 years post-graduation to observe. Where a\nfigure matters, say the vintage.\n\n## Mirrors\n\nThe canonical, versioned record is **Zenodo — DOI [10.5281/zenodo.21351603](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21351603)** (the concept DOI [10.5281/zenodo.21351602](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21351602) always resolves to the latest version). The same tables are mirrored for discovery and convenience:\n\n| Surface | Link |\n|---|---|\n| GitHub (this repo) | \u003chttps://github.com/thomasthinks/college-roi-data\u003e |\n| Hugging Face | \u003chttps://huggingface.co/datasets/le-teen/college-roi-data\u003e |\n| Kaggle | \u003chttps://www.kaggle.com/datasets/leteen/college-roi-data\u003e |\n| figshare | \u003chttps://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32988698\u003e |\n| OpenML | \u003chttps://www.openml.org/d/47261\u003e · \u003chttps://www.openml.org/d/47262\u003e |\n| OSF | \u003chttps://osf.io/uy4pz/\u003e |\n\nCite the Zenodo DOI (see [Cite](#cite)). A Harvard Dataverse record is pending curator review and will be added here when it publishes.\n\n## Programmatic access\n\nDon't want CSVs? The same numbers are queryable live:\n\n- **JSON API** — free, keyless, CORS-open static JSON at [le-teen.com/api](https://le-teen.com/api): all majors/subfields, the 500 positive-NPV-envelope colleges, and the standing rankings, with an [OpenAPI 3.1 spec](https://le-teen.com/api/v1/openapi.json). Root: `https://le-teen.com/api/v1/index.json`.\n- **MCP server** — the data as native tools for AI agents (Model Context Protocol, stdio): `npx -y college-roi-mcp` ([npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/college-roi-mcp) · [source](https://github.com/thomasthinks/college-roi-mcp), MIT). On the [official MCP registry](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=college-roi) as `com.le-teen/college-roi-mcp` and on [Smithery](https://smithery.ai/servers/tj-r4v3/college-roi-mcp).\n\nNote the scope difference: this dataset covers all 3,392 institutions; the API/MCP college endpoints expose the 500 that clear LE TEEN's positive-NPV editorial envelope (absence there is a coverage statement, not a verdict).\n\n## Cite\n\n\u003e LE TEEN (2026). *College ROI Data: 30-year net present value of U.S. colleges and majors.*\n\u003e Derived from FREOPP (2021), NCES IPEDS (2023-24), BEA RPP (2023). https://le-teen.com/methodology\n\nA `CITATION.cff` ships in this repository; DOI: [10.5281/zenodo.21351603](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21351603) (concept DOI for all versions: [10.5281/zenodo.21351602](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21351602)).\n\n## Refresh cadence\n\nTracks the LE TEEN site data: IPEDS/BEA annually, FREOPP when a new public download\nexists, AI-exposure inputs ~60 days. Each refresh is a tagged release.\n\n*Maintained by [LE TEEN](https://le-teen.com) · press: press@le-teen.com*\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fthomasthinks%2Fcollege-roi-data","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fthomasthinks%2Fcollege-roi-data","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fthomasthinks%2Fcollege-roi-data/lists"}