Data & Methodology


Data & Methodology

CollegeWhale’s state scholarship hubs integrate proprietary scholarship listings curated by our editorial team with publicly available U.S. higher-education data to help students evaluate college affordability and financial aid opportunities. This page outlines our data sources, inclusion criteria, update frequency, attribution requirements, and licensing terms.

Data Sources

  • College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education) — Provides institutional metrics including average net price, median earnings 10 years after entry, percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, median debt upon graduation, admission and graduation rates, and typical SAT/ACT ranges. Official Source.
  • CollegeWhale Scholarship Database — Original scholarship and grant listings authored, reviewed, and updated by CollegeWhale editors. Each record is verified for accuracy and tagged by state, eligibility criteria, and academic year.

Inclusion Criteria & Definitions

  • Scholarship Deadline: Determined from deadline fields or month tags applied to each listing (e.g., January–December). When not explicitly defined, the entry is labeled as “Rolling.”
  • Award Amount: Extracted from structured metadata or parsed from descriptive content, normalized to a U.S. dollar figure where possible.
  • Average Net Price: Based on College Scorecard variable latest.cost.avg_net_price.overall, defaulting to public/private net price when overall data is unavailable.
  • Earnings After 10 Years: College Scorecard variable latest.earnings.10_yrs_after_entry.median.
  • Display Formatting: Percentages are rounded to whole numbers; currency values are rounded to the nearest dollar; missing or suppressed data are displayed as “—”.

Update Frequency

  • College Scorecard Data: Retrieved dynamically at page load from the Department of Education API and cached locally within the visitor’s browser for performance. CollegeWhale refreshes implementation code as new Scorecard datasets become available.
  • Scholarship Listings: Maintained and reviewed on a rolling basis. The “Last Updated” date on each entry reflects the most recent editorial or data revision.

Attribution & Licensing

Unless otherwise noted, CollegeWhale’s compiled exports (CSV/JSON) are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, redistribute, or adapt the data for personal or commercial use with appropriate credit to “CollegeWhale.com” and a functioning hyperlink to the original dataset page.

College Scorecard data is governed by U.S. Open Data policies and remains the property of the U.S. Department of Education. When redistributing or combining this information, users must retain attribution to the original federal source.

Limitations & Disclaimers

All information is provided “as is” without any express or implied warranties, including but not limited to warranties of accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or fitness for a particular purpose. Data may change without notice as institutions update their official disclosures or as new Scorecard releases occur. CollegeWhale content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or academic advice. Users should confirm details directly with scholarship sponsors, colleges, or official financial aid offices before making decisions.

Corrections & Contact

CollegeWhale welcomes feedback and data corrections. To report an error, suggest a new listing, or request data clarification, please contact info@collegewhale.com.