Data We Use

Built on real-world education and outcome data. Learn what data goes into ROEDU, how it’s sourced, and how we ensure relevance and reliability.

Public Education & Outcomes Data

ROEDU incorporates nationally recognized education datasets that provide consistent, comparable insight across institutions and programs. These include federal education and outcomes data used widely by researchers, policymakers, and institutions.

Examples include:

• IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) for institutional characteristics, enrollment, completion, and cost
• College Scorecard data for student outcomes and earnings patterns

These sources form a stable baseline for understanding how schools and programs perform at scale.

Labor Market & Economic Data

To reflect how education translates into real-world outcomes, ROEDU integrates labor market and economic data that captures:

• Earnings trends by field and credential
• Employment patterns and workforce demand
• Regional and industry-level conditions

This helps connect education choices to the environments students actually enter after completion.

Survey & Observational Data

In addition to public datasets, ROEDU incorporates aggregated survey-based and observational data to add context that isn’t always visible in administrative records alone.

These inputs help inform:

• Career trajectories over time
• Variability in outcomes
• Transitional pathways between education and employment

Third- and Fourth-Party Data Partnerships

Where appropriate, ROEDU works with external data providers and partners to supplement public data with additional context and coverage.

These relationships help improve:

• Timeliness of insights
• Depth in specific fields or regions
• Validation of broader trends

We prioritize sources that meet standards for reliability, scale, and consistency.

How We Think About Quality & Reliability

ROEDU is designed to balance rigor with responsibility. All data used in the framework is evaluated for:

• Relevance: Does it reflect current education and labor conditions?
• Consistency: Can it be compared across institutions and programs?
• Scale: Is it representative enough to support meaningful insights?

Data is used in aggregate and at the population level, and ROEDU does not rely on individual-level or personally identifiable information.

A Note on Transparency

ROEDU is built to be interpretable and evidence-based, not exhaustive. While we share the standards and types of data we use, we intentionally focus on clarity of insight rather than publishing raw datasets or proprietary modeling details.

Our goal is simple: to provide students and families with information they can trust, without asking them to become data scientists.