National Center for Education Statistics
U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is considered the definitive source of education statistics. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS allows you to, for example, discover and compare what colleges spend on instructors administration, research, financial aid, or find the trend data for one particular college. IPEDS also enables you to, for example, compare all colleges’ sticker prices, say, or find the trend data for one particular college.
Related Links
For more specific data on financial aid, check the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, which is a definitive quadrennial study of financial aid trends. The last year studied was 2011-12, but that data was unavailable as of spring 2012.The NCES Navigator allows you to quickly and easily look at most of the most important price numbers for a specified college – sticker price and net prices for various income levels over the last several years.
And Chapter 3 of the Digest of Education Statistics has most of the most important general statistics on price and aid.
