Project 1: Exploring college Data

Introduction

This report analyzes the CollegeScores4yr dataset using descriptive statistics methods from Chapter 6, including measures of center, spread, and visualizations.

I propse the following 10 questions based on my own understanding of the data.

1. What is the mean cost of attendance?
2. What is the median admission rate?
3. How variable are SAT scores?
4. What is the distribution of costs?
5. What percentage of colleges are public vs private?
6. Is there a relationship between cost and SAT scores?
7. How does graduation rate vary by institution type?
8. What is the distribution of faculty salaries?
9. What is the typical student-faculty ratio?
10. Is there a correlation between admission and graduation rates?

Analysis

we will explore the questions in detail:

college = read.csv("https://www.lock5stat.com/datasets3e/CollegeScores4yr.csv")

Q1:What is the mean cost of attendance?

mean_cost <- mean(college$Cost, na.rm = TRUE)

Q2:What is the median admission rate?

admit_median <- median(college$AdmitRate, na.rm = TRUE)  

Q3:How variable are SAT scores?

sat_sd <- sd(college$AvgSAT, na.rm = TRUE)

Q4:What is the distribution of costs?

hist(college$Cost, breaks = 20, col = "skyblue", 
     main = "College Costs Distribution", xlab = "Cost ($)")

Q5:What percentage of colleges are public vs private?

type_counts <- table(college$Control)
pie(type_counts,
    labels = paste0(names(type_counts), "\n", round(prop.table(type_counts)*100, 1), "%"),
    col = c("lightblue", "lightgreen"),
    main = paste("Institution Control (n =", sum(type_counts), ")"))

Q6:Is there a relationship between cost and SAT scores?

ccor_cost_sat <- cor(college$Cost, college$AvgSAT, use = "complete.obs")

Q7:How does graduation rate vary by institution type?

boxplot(CompRate ~ Control, data = college,  # Your grad rate column is CompRate
        col = c("lightblue", "lightgreen"),
        main = "Completion Rates by Institution Control")

Q8:What is the distribution of faculty salaries?

hist(college$FacSalary, col = "gold",  # Your column is FacSalary
     main = "Faculty Salaries", xlab = "Salary ($)")

Q9: What is the typical student-faculty ratio?

sf_ratio <- median(college$Enrollment / college$InstructFTE, na.rm = TRUE)

Q10:Is there a correlation between admission and graduation rates?

plot(college$AdmitRate, college$CompRate, 
     col = rgb(0.5, 0, 0.8, 0.5), pch = 19,
     xlab = "Admission Rate", ylab = "Completion Rate")

Appendix

# Full analysis code
college <- read.csv("https://www.lock5stat.com/datasets3e/CollegeScores4yr.csv")

# Q1-Q10 code chunks
mean(college$Cost, na.rm = TRUE)

## [1] 34277.31

median(college$AdmitRate, na.rm = TRUE)

## [1] 0.69505

sd(college$AvgSAT, na.rm = TRUE)

## [1] 128.9077

hist(college$Cost)

pie(table(college$Control))

cor(college$Cost, college$AvgSAT, use = "complete.obs")

## [1] 0.5373884

boxplot(CompRate ~ Control, data = college)

hist(college$FacSalary)

median(college$Enrollment/college$InstructFTE, na.rm = TRUE)

## [1] 0.1979082

plot(college$AdmitRate, college$CompRate)