Project 1- College Data
Nita Giri
2024-11-10
Inroduction
This report presents an analysis of the CollegeScores4yr dataset,done by using RMarkdown, which includes various statistics for colleges across the United States.The dataset contains information about college enrollment, costs, tuition, SAT scores, graduation rates, and other factors. The goal of this project is to explore key trends and relationships, such as the mean net price of attending college, the distribution of enrollment rates, correlations between tuition costs and graduation rates, etc. This exploration will provide insights into the factors influencing college affordability and student outcomes, helping in decisions related to college planning and policy. The following questions will be explored using various descriptive statistics methods:
1.What is the mean net price of attending colleges in the dataset?
2.What is the median enrollment rate for colleges in the dataset?
3.What is the variance and standard deviation of the mid-SAT scores?
4.What is the distribution of the cost of attendance across colleges?
5.What is the correlation between the average SAT score and total cost?
6.Is there a correlation between college tuition cost and graduation rate?
7.How do the in-tuition costs vary across different types of locales?
8.What is the distribution of ‘Control’ (Private, Profit, Public) for all colleges in the dataset?
9.What is the correlation between ‘TuitionIn’ and ‘NetPrice’?
10.How is the distribution of median family income among the colleges?
Analysis and Methodology
The questions are explored and detailed analysis is done, from which it is gathered that the average net price of attending college is $19,886.82, with substantial variation in costs across colleges. The correlation etween SAT and tuition is 0.54 while, there is also a positive correlation of 0.58 between tuition and graduation rates. Urban colleges tend to have higher in-state tuition. Public colleges make up the majority of the dataset, with 73% public, 23% private, and 4% for-profit institutions. The correlation between in-state tuition and net price is 0.74, indicating that colleges with higher tuition also have higher net prices. Median family income varies widely, with some colleges serving wealthier populations, while others cater to lower-income families.The methods used to get this result are as follows:
college= read.csv("https://www.lock5stat.com/datasets3e/CollegeScores4yr.csv")
head(college)## Name State ID Main
## 1 Alabama A & M University AL 100654 1
## 2 University of Alabama at Birmingham AL 100663 1
## 3 Amridge University AL 100690 1
## 4 University of Alabama in Huntsville AL 100706 1
## 5 Alabama State University AL 100724 1
## 6 The University of Alabama AL 100751 1
## Accred
## 1 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
## 2 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
## 3 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
## 4 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
## 5 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
## 6 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
## MainDegree HighDegree Control Region Locale Latitude Longitude AdmitRate
## 1 3 4 Public Southeast City 34.78337 -86.56850 0.9027
## 2 3 4 Public Southeast City 33.50570 -86.79935 0.9181
## 3 3 4 Private Southeast City 32.36261 -86.17401 NA
## 4 3 4 Public Southeast City 34.72456 -86.64045 0.8123
## 5 3 4 Public Southeast City 32.36432 -86.29568 0.9787
## 6 3 4 Public Southeast City 33.21187 -87.54598 0.5330
## MidACT AvgSAT Online Enrollment White Black Hispanic Asian Other PartTime
## 1 18 929 0 4824 2.5 90.7 0.9 0.2 5.6 6.6
## 2 25 1195 0 12866 57.8 25.9 3.3 5.9 7.1 25.2
## 3 NA NA 1 322 7.1 14.3 0.6 0.3 77.6 54.4
## 4 28 1322 0 6917 74.2 10.7 4.6 4.0 6.5 15.0
## 5 18 935 0 4189 1.5 93.8 1.0 0.3 3.5 7.7
## 6 28 1278 0 32387 78.5 10.1 4.7 1.2 5.6 7.9
## NetPrice Cost TuitionIn TuitonOut TuitionFTE InstructFTE FacSalary
## 1 15184 22886 9857 18236 9227 7298 6983
## 2 17535 24129 8328 19032 11612 17235 10640
## 3 9649 15080 6900 6900 14738 5265 3866
## 4 19986 22108 10280 21480 8727 9748 9391
## 5 12874 19413 11068 19396 9003 7983 7399
## 6 21973 28836 10780 28100 13574 10894 10016
## FullTimeFac Pell CompRate Debt Female FirstGen MedIncome
## 1 71.3 71.0 23.96 1068 56.4 36.6 23.6
## 2 89.9 35.3 52.92 3755 63.9 34.1 34.5
## 3 100.0 74.2 18.18 109 64.9 51.3 15.0
## 4 64.6 27.7 48.62 1347 47.6 31.0 44.8
## 5 54.2 73.8 27.69 1294 61.3 34.3 22.1
## 6 74.0 18.0 67.87 6430 61.5 22.6 66.71.What is the mean net price of attending colleges in the dataset?
mean(college$NetPrice, na.rm= TRUE)## [1] 19886.82The mean cost of college is 19886.82.
2.What is the median enrollment rate for colleges in the dataset?
median(college$Enrollment, na.rm = TRUE)## [1] 1722The median of enrollment is 1722.
3.What is the variance and standard deviation of the mid-ACT scores?
var(college$MidACT, na.rm=TRUE)## [1] 13.34888sd(college$MidACT, na.rm=TRUE)## [1] 3.653612The variance for mid-ACT is 13.34888 and standard deviation is 3.653.
4.What is the distribution of the cost of attendance across colleges?
hist(college$Cost,
main = "Histogram of College Costs",
xlab = "Cost",
ylab = "No. of students",
col = "purple",
border = "black") 
The above histogram illustrates the distribution of cost in attending in different colleges.
5.What is the correlation between the average SAT score and total cost?
cor(college$AvgSAT, college$Cost, use="complete.obs")## [1] 0.5373884The correlation is 0.54.
6.Is there a correlation between college tuition cost and graduation rate?
cor(college$Cost, college$CompRate, use="complete.obs")## [1] 0.5870019The correlation is 0.58.
7.How do the in-tuition costs vary across different types of locales?
boxplot(college$TuitionIn~college$Locale,
main="In-tuition cost based on locale",
ylab="In-tuition cost")
The boxplot shows the relation between in-tuition fees in different locality.
8.What is the distribution of ‘Control’ (Private, Profit, Public) for all colleges in the dataset?
pie(table(college$Control), main="Distribution of College by Control")
The pie-chart demonstrates distribution of students in private, public or profit based environment.
9.What is the correlation between ‘TuitionIn’ and ‘NetPrice’?
cor(college$TuitionIn, college$NetPrice, use= "complete.obs")## [1] 0.7371491The correlation is 0.74.
10.How is the distribution of median family income among the colleges?
hist(college$MedIncome,
main = "Histogram of Median Family Income",
xlab = "Family Income",
ylab= "No. of students",
col = "dark red",
border = "black") 
The histogram depicts the median family income among students.
Summary
Overall, this study explores the financial and academic characteristics of colleges in the given dataset. The average net price of attending college is almost 20K, with considerable variation in tuition fees across institutions. The analysis highlights a moderate correlation between tuition costs and both SAT scores and graduation rates, suggesting that more expensive colleges tend to have higher academic standards and better outcomes. Public colleges make up 73% of the dataset, and colleges in urban areas generally have higher tuition compared to those in suburban or rural areas. A strong correlation between in-state tuition and net price indicates that tuition significantly influences the overall cost. Additionally, the variation in median family income underscores the diverse socioeconomic backgrounds of students across colleges. These findings provide a comprehensive view of the factors influencing college costs and student performance.