The College Scorecard is one of the richest public datasets in higher ed, and one of the hardest to use. CollegeTrends puts it in one free, searchable dashboard. Prospective students and their parents can check what a school really costs and how its graduates do. Researchers can filter, compare, and export every number.
What you can do
- Search and filter every U.S. institution by name, state, ownership (public, private nonprofit, for-profit), size, and degree level, or start from presets like “Large flagships” and “Small private.”
- Pin and compare up to 5 schools side by side in every view.
- Explore 14 views: summary, map, compare, cost and aid, admissions, loans and aid, debt and repayment, earnings, retention, outcomes by student type, demographics, faculty, trends, and majors, plus a detail page for every school with national percentiles.
- Dig into the numbers that matter: net price by family income, 10-year earnings, median debt by income, first-gen, and Pell status, completion and transfer rates, and repayment and default rates.
- Share and export: every view has a shareable link, and any filtered list exports to CSV.
Every school gets its own shareable page with a custom social image, so all 5,787 are indexable and linkable. It’s my years of higher-ed SEO work turned into a product.
What’s next
Saved school lists, reach/match/safety tags, printable side-by-side comparisons for families, and a deadline tracker for early decision, early action, and regular admission.