Where does the individual-level anonymized data for the collegescorecard live? For obvious reasons, this would be more valuable to researchers than the summary data.
I don't see any access to it from the documentation
1 Answer
College Scorecard data are only available at the institution-level. Many of the data elements are derived from IPEDS data reported to the Department by institutions at the institution-level, see http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/. Most of the other data elements are derived from the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS), the Department's central database for student aid. Individual schools and individual students have access to their own individual-level data through NSLDS, see https://www.nsldsfap.ed.gov/nslds_FAP/ and https://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds/nslds_SA/ .
answered Sep 19, 2016 at 13:49
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Thanks Brian! I see that the data is currently only available at the institution level. However, the individual data must obviously exist. Why isn't it available with the institution data? And/or how can it be made available? Sep 19, 2016 at 17:54
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Alex, appreciate your interest, but at this time the Department does not have a system in place for nongovernment researchers to access student-level NSLDS data Sep 21, 2016 at 0:13
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Brian, why not? The data would be valuable. And obviously it could be anonymized to ensure privacy. Sep 21, 2016 at 3:32
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We appreciate your interest, and will consider it moving forward. However, at this time, we are not able to provide such data to external parties Oct 27, 2016 at 21:25