Here's exactly where our data comes from, which sets are federal and which are not, how we verify it, and how often we update it.
Our Data Integrity Principle
If we can't cite it, we don't display it. The core facts on GradFax come from federal sources, and each school page links to the IPEDS and College Scorecard records for that school. Curated, derived and third-party sets are named below. When data is community-sourced rather than government-verified, we label it clearly. We never mix verified and unverified data without disclosure.
IPEDS is the primary source for the vast majority of data on GradFax. Maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), IPEDS collects data from every college, university, and technical/vocational institution that participates in federal student financial aid programs.
Data points from IPEDS:
Update frequency: IPEDS data is refreshed every 3-6 months as new survey cycles are released. Most recent data: IPEDS 2023-2024 academic year.
The College Scorecard is maintained by the U.S. Department of Education and provides outcome-focused data that goes beyond what IPEDS captures.
Data points from College Scorecard:
Update frequency: Quarterly, as new cohort data becomes available.
Historical weather data for each school's location. One-time fetch, static dataset.
Campus images curated from public domain and Creative Commons sources. 2,045 images curated.
Campus maps and nearby places. Map data is maintained by the OpenStreetMap community, not by a federal agency.
Fraternity and sorority participation and school mascots are curated by GradFax rather than taken from a federal survey.
Campus culture, nightlife, and social life data collected from student communities and public sources. Always clearly labeled with a community badge on the platform. Currently covers top 250 schools by enrollment.
Ingest from federal databases
Federal figures are taken from the IPEDS and College Scorecard releases published by the U.S. Department of Education. The curated and third-party sets listed above are added separately.
Validate and clean
Automated checks flag outliers, missing values, and inconsistencies. Where a school never reported a figure, we show "Not reported" instead of filling in a number.
A few figures are derived rather than reported. Out-of-state tuition and room and board are estimated when a school reports only a total cost, and average class size is estimated as the student-faculty ratio times 2.5; each is marked with an estimate icon in the facts list. The GradFax Outcomes Index is a GradFax composite of the retention, graduation, completion, student-faculty ratio and aid figures shown elsewhere on the same page. Derived numbers never carry a government source link.
Cross-reference
Key metrics (tuition, acceptance rates) are cross-checked against College Scorecard and institutional websites for consistency.
Source attribution
Each school page links to the IPEDS and College Scorecard records for that school, so the federal figures on it can be checked at the source.
6,000+
Accredited institutions
50
States + territories
100+
Data points per school
If you spot an error or have questions about a specific data point, let us know.
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