Not a lot of nuance, and I think the headline is misleading (“How Cuts to Public Universities
Have Driven Students Out of State”), but for those like myself who love graphs and charts, this is pretty cool.
I like this, certainly affirms what I see/hear and perception of import/export in my state but it’s fun to look at all of them. Thanks for sharing.
@eandesmom, several years ago, The Chronicle of Higher Education had this really neat interactive feature, “Where Does Your Freshman Class Come From?” that many of us are still waiting for them to update. 
http://www.chronicle.com/interactives/freshmen_insts/#id=214777
Surprising that PA outflows appear to be small, despite the poor affordability of the flagship schools and the poor reputation with mediocre affordability of the PASSHE schools.
Not surprising if you live here, @ucbalumnus. As long as all those wealthy students from NY, NJ, and MA flee their in-state options, there’s an “equilibrium” of sorts that exists.
They did update it. Came out just in the last week or so. There’s a lot more detail here than in the NYT graphics.
Re #4
But the arrows are not the net flows. MN and WI have arrows going both directions.
PA receives a huge arrow from NJ, but has only small outbound arrows.
Love both articles’ graphs and charts. Don’t agree with some of the assertions but won’t let that stand in the way of playing with the charts.
I liked looking at the growth in college students in total for my state between 1998 when my first child was born and today. Given that our flagships were already 40,000-50,000 people in 1998 they were not going to grow much larger. That (versus funding per se) is what has created the improvement of other universities in the state and the drive to leave the state in my opinion.
Among many other problems with the NY Times data, it focuses only on public university enrollments. In some states that can give you a highly misleading impression of the overall market in college admissions, since many students will simply attend the best school they’re admitted to and can afford, whether it’s public or private. So, for example, the NY Times shows 11,813 residents “left New Jersey for other states” in 2014. But what they really mean is that many left New Jersey to enroll as freshmen in public universities in other states in 2014. As the Chronicle of Higher Education data indicates, a total of 31,783 New Jersey residents enrolled as freshmen in out-of-state colleges and universities (public and private) in 2014, while only 4,817 residents of other states entered public and private New Jersey colleges and universities in that year. That made New Jersey a net exporter of a whopping 26,966 college freshmen, nearly twice as many as the second and third leading exporters, Illinois and California.
As for Pennsylvania, the Times data indicate that 6,995 Pennsylvanians left toe state to enroll as freshmen in out-of-state public universities in 2014. But the Chronicle data indicate that nearly twice that many, 16,207, enrolled as freshmen in out-of-state colleges and universities (public and private) that year. But that was offset by imports of 32,357 freshmen from other states to Pennsylvania, making Pennsylvania far and away the largest net importer of college freshmen. Many of them—9.046, to be exact—came from neighboring New Jersey. In contrast, only 494 Pennsylvanians crossed the border into New Jersey to enroll as freshmen in New Jersey colleges and universities. That made the New Jersey-Pennsylvania bilateral trade imbalance in college students fqar and away the largest in the country,
By the way, the Times and the Chronicle are using the same U.S. Department of Education data.
New Jersey’s biggest export has always been 18 year old college bound students. As Archie Bunker once said: “No one wants to live in New Jersey but somebody has to.”
Quoth the article: “6,995 residents left Pennsylvania for other states,” with 1,164 to Ohio alone. Still kind of a lot. I think the arrow sizing might take factors other than pure numbers into account. Like maybe population or something.
@LucieTheLakie and @bclintonk thanks, those are great! Fun info.
17k leaving California just isn’t that many when the state has 2.5 million college students
@ucbalumnus, the thing is, even though PA has essentially stopped supporting public higher education in that state, almost all OOS costs would still be higher. Hence why I would not expect greater outflows.
Seems like the there’s a correlation between amount of outflows and number of well-off suburbanites in a state.
That huge arrow from CA to AZ may reflect many students whose academic credentials would get them into ASU and UA, but would leave them mostly with commuter-based CSU choices in CA. If their parents are willing to spend the money, they may find the ASU or UA flagship experience more attractive.
16% of students at NAU are from California.
Being a WUE state, expected other WUE states to be the most popular for incoming students. Surprised that Texas and Illinois were also high on the list.
It appears the military academies aren’t part of the data used. Colorado, NY and Maryland should have at least shown more students from all the states but it didn’t appear to be that way.
Again, the Times is reporting only how many Californians enrolled as freshmen in out of state public universities in 2014. The Chronicle data indicate that a total of 38,532 Californians enrolled as freshmen in out-of-state colleges and universities (public and private) in 2014. And that’s just freshmen. Even if everyone graduated in 4 years, that would represent roughly 160,000 Californians attending out-of-state colleges and universities.
I’m not sure where you got the “2.5 million college students” figure, or what that represents. Does it include graduate students? Non-degree students? Part-time students? Both the Times and the Chronicle are reporting on full-time freshmen enrollments. Sticking with that, the Chronicle reports that 110.897 Californians enrolled as freshmen at in-state colleges and universities (public and private) in 2014, compared to 38,532 who enrolled as freshmen out-of-state. That means 74,2% stayed in-state. This is pretty close to, but perhaps slightly under the national average. Still, it made California the largest gross exporter of college students. But those exports were partially offset by imports of 22,805 out-of-state freshmen who enrolled in California colleges and universities (public and private), pushing California’s net exports down to #3 behind New Jersey and Illinois.
I cannot stand when data like this is not indexed or normalized. If a college takes 1,000 students from Rhode Island and 1,000 from California, that’s not at all the same thing.
So they say:
Xxx students left (state) - and it never occurs to them to add “representing x% of the xx high school seniors (or college bound seniors) in that state” to give some perspective whether xxx is a lot or a little?
Yyy students came in - and it never occurs to then to add “representing yy% of students at this state’s public universities”?
Nowhere did it occur to them to footnote each state with - this state’s public universities have zz spots in them, meaning that they could accommodate x% of that state’s xx number of college bound seniors?
Lame analysis. You wouldn’t last two minutes at McKinsey or similar if you didn’t add the above pieces to such an analysis to add context. These are factoids, not analysis.