Federal data guide
Education & Research Data
A guide to the federal datasets behind US education and the research enterprise — the higher-education statistics, the college cost-and-outcomes data, the K-12 achievement record, and the NSF and NIH grants (plus the integrity system that polices them). Each links to a full deep-dive, and the cross-dataset analyses join them.
The federal government measures schooling and the science it funds. The Education Department’s NCES runs IPEDS (the census of colleges) and NAEP (the Nation’s Report Card), and the College Scorecard ties cost to debt and earnings. On the research side, the NSF and NIH together fund most US basic and biomedical science, while the Office of Research Integrity investigates misconduct in the work they fund. The guides group the deep-dives and point to the cross-dataset analyses — whether college pays off, and how the research money and its oversight line up.
Higher education & schools
The census of colleges, their outcomes, and K-12 achievement.
- NCES IPEDS: The Federal Database Behind Higher Education Statistics for 6,000 US Colleges — the census of colleges
- College Scorecard: The Federal Dataset That Exposes Graduation Rates, Debt, and Earnings for Every US College — cost, debt, and earnings
- NAEP: The Nation’s Report Card and the Federal Dataset Behind US Education Achievement — the Nation’s Report Card
Federal research funding & integrity
Who funds US science, and who polices it.
- NIH Research Portfolio: The Federal Database Behind $50 Billion in Annual Biomedical Grants — biomedical research grants
- NSF Awards: The Federal Record of Who Gets US Science Funding — who gets NSF funding
- NSF Research Grants: Mapping $9 Billion in Annual Basic Science Funding — mapping the NSF portfolio
- ORI Research Misconduct Database: The Federal Record Behind Scientific Fraud and Fabrication — the misconduct findings
Cross-dataset analyses
Synthesis guides that join several of the datasets above.
- Is College Worth It? Measuring Value by Joining IPEDS and the College Scorecard — IPEDS + Scorecard, by institution
- The Federal Research Enterprise: Joining NSF, NIH, and Research-Misconduct Data — funding joined to its oversight
More guides at Federal data guides, or browse all writing and the full dataset catalog.