Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. on College Scorecard & Pell Abacus
“Now as you complete your college application and your FAFSA, one of the things you want to think about is: "What's the real cost of a college for me?" I was at a high school in Washington, D.C., a few months back when students were looking at something called the Pell Abacus. It's a tool that uses information from the Scorecard to help students figure out what schools will actually cost once you account for grants and other financial aid.
And I was sitting with a student who discovered, while using the Pell Abacus tool, that the school he thought was inaccessible, that was going to be unaffordable, actually was less expensive than the school he thought he had to go to for financial reasons. The only reason he knew that is because he took advantage of that tool and took advantage of the information about his options.”
Read the full speech on the U.S. Department of Education's website
“Now as you complete your college application and your FAFSA, one of the things you want to think about is: "What's the real cost of a college for me?" I was at a high school in Washington, D.C., a few months back when students were looking at something called the Pell Abacus. It's a tool that uses information from the Scorecard to help students figure out what schools will actually cost once you account for grants and other financial aid.
And I was sitting with a student who discovered, while using the Pell Abacus tool, that the school he thought was inaccessible, that was going to be unaffordable, actually was less expensive than the school he thought he had to go to for financial reasons. The only reason he knew that is because he took advantage of that tool and took advantage of the information about his options.”
Read the full speech on the U.S. Department of Education's website.
The New York Times: "Concealing the Calculus of Higher Education"
Not long after the calculator became standard, a service called College Abacus emerged, allowing families to compare multiple schools at once. That spared them the laborious task of plugging the same data into multiple calculators many times over.
And how did many colleges respond? By blocking College Abacus’s access to their calculators. Imagine if Expedia or Kayak could not search for tickets on some of the most desirable airlines, and you get the idea.
Read more in The New York Times.
Not long after the calculator became standard, a service called College Abacus emerged, allowing families to compare multiple schools at once. That spared them the laborious task of plugging the same data into multiple calculators many times over.
And how did many colleges respond? By blocking College Abacus’s access to their calculators. Imagine if Expedia or Kayak could not search for tickets on some of the most desirable airlines, and you get the idea.
Read more in The New York Times.
The Washington Post: "Using data from College Scorecard, the lab created its own site, Pell Abacus"
Secretary King, along with other education leaders and computer scientists, talked to the students about applying to college and seeking science-related careers. The classroom visit also was an opportunity for King to pitch the government’s new College Scorecard initiative — a website that allows people to browse and compare colleges on different metrics, including graduation rates, post-college earnings of students who receive federal aid and more.
Leaders at ECMC Innovation Lab — the nonprofit arm of a student debt collection company — spoke to the students about computer coding. Using data from College Scorecard, the lab created its own site, Pell Abacus, which allows students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches to see how much colleges would cost when taking financial aid into account.
Read the full article in The Washington Post.
Secretary King, along with other education leaders and computer scientists, talked to the students about applying to college and seeking science-related careers. The classroom visit also was an opportunity for King to pitch the government’s new College Scorecard initiative — a website that allows people to browse and compare colleges on different metrics, including graduation rates, post-college earnings of students who receive federal aid and more.
Leaders at ECMC Innovation Lab spoke to the students about computer coding. Using data from College Scorecard, the lab created its own site, Pell Abacus, which allows students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches to see how much colleges would cost when taking financial aid into account.
Read the full article in The Washington Post.
The Wall Street Journal: "The New Math of College Rankings"
The College Scorecard has been a boon to College Abacus, for one, a site that compares more than 5,000 colleges based on likely net price—after financial assistance, work study and other aid resources are factored in. The new data have given the site the ability to show debt-repayment rates and average earnings for people who enrolled at a given school alongside students’ individual net prices.
The data also led College Abacus’s parent company, education nonprofit ECMC Group, to launch Pell Abacus, a site that helps low-income students understand their financial-aid options.
Abigail Seldin, co-founder of College Abacus and vice president of innovation and product management at ECMC Group, says the government’s decision to unlock the data makes her site more useful, and serves as an endorsement of choosing schools based on financial factors instead of focusing solely on more traditional factors like social and academic fit.
Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.
The College Scorecard API a has been a boon to College Abacus, for one, a site that compares more than 5,000 colleges based on likely net price—after financial assistance, work study and other aid resources are factored in. The new data have given the site the ability to show debt-repayment rates and average earnings for people who enrolled at a given school alongside students’ individual net prices.
The data also led College Abacus’s parent company, education nonprofit ECMC Group, to launch Pell Abacus, a site that helps low-income students understand their financial-aid options.
Abigail Seldin, co-founder of College Abacus and vice president of innovation and product management at ECMC Group, says the government’s decision to unlock the data makes her site more useful, and serves as an endorsement of choosing schools based on financial factors instead of focusing solely on more traditional factors like social and academic fit.
Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.
Inside Higher Ed: Abacus Releases Tool for Low-Income Students
College Abacus is a free online tool for students and families to compare college pricing -- using net-price estimates taken from colleges and federal databases. The tool, which is owned by ECMC Group, a nonprofit loan guarantor, was one of several outside entities the U.S. Department of Education collaborated with on new data from the White House's College Scorecard, released earlier this month. College Abacus got early access to information from the large data sets that undergird the Scorecard, incorporating it into the online tool.
On Monday the group announced the release of a new tool aimed at low-income students. In addition to net-price comparisons, the new Pell Abacus uses data from the Scorecard to display college-specific information on financial factors such as average loan payments for Pell Grant recipients, the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants and the average monthly income percentage spent on federal loan repayments after college.
College Abacus is a free online tool for students and families to compare college pricing -- using net-price estimates taken from colleges and federal databases. The tool, which is owned by ECMC Group, a nonprofit loan guarantor, was one of several outside entities the U.S. Department of Education collaborated with on new data from the White House's College Scorecard, released earlier this month. College Abacus got early access to information from the large data sets that undergird the Scorecard, incorporating it into the online tool.
On Monday the group announced the release of a new tool aimed at low-income students. In addition to net-price comparisons, the new Pell Abacus uses data from the Scorecard to display college-specific information on financial factors such as average loan payments for Pell Grant recipients, the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants and the average monthly income percentage spent on federal loan repayments after college.
“By making this process simple to navigate without tax forms and accessible on mobile phones, we’re removing some of the key barriers preventing low-income students from exploring their full range of college options,” Abigail Seldin, co-founder of College Abacus and vice president of innovation and product management at ECMC Group, said.
Read the full article in Inside Higher Ed.
The New York Times: "Comparing College Costs the Easy Way"
Not long after the calculator became standard, a service called College Abacus emerged, allowing families to compare multiple schools at once. That spared them the laborious task of plugging the same data into multiple calculators many times over.
And how did many colleges respond? By blocking College Abacus’s access to their calculators. Imagine if Expedia or Kayak could not search for tickets on some of the most desirable airlines, and you get the idea.
Read more in The New York Times.
On Track 2 was the co-founder of College Abacus, Abigail Seldin, 26, who has spent her life on a very fast track of her own. She skipped sixth grade, co-curated an exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania museum at age 20 and became a Rhodes scholar. In England, she met another Rhodes scholar, Whitney Haring-Smith, whom she later married. His mother happened to be the president of Washington & Jefferson College, and she fretted aloud about the families who were going to have to put all of their data into net price calculator after net price calculator until their eyeballs melted….
Read more in The New York Times.
