What's new
Every college's admissions figures now come from the newest federal release, one year later than before, and aid and price figures move up a year too. Some examples of how average total cost changed:
| College | Avg total cost, before → after | Aid generosity |
|---|---|---|
| Vanderbilt | $46,430 → $46,508 | 45% → 48% |
| Harvard | $46,744 → $48,312 | 44% → 44% |
| UCLA | $32,958 → $32,201 | 25% → 28% |
| Michigan | $40,022 → $39,461 | 23% → 27% |
Why we were behind
The National Center for Education Statistics moved its newer data files to a new web address. The data sync only looked in the old one, so it quietly stopped at the last files published there. It now checks the new location first. The newest release also reorganized several files; the sync now reads either layout, so future releases should load without code changes.
Checks
Vanderbilt's rebuilt net price matches the College Scorecard's figure for the same year exactly, and coverage is unchanged. The newest year is a provisional release: NCES usually revises it about a year later, and the next sync picks up the revisions.