Click anywhere on the visualization to normalize the data to tuition, room, and board ($15,000).

Source code: a3Viz FloatTable Integrator

Built with Processing

Are Tuition Increases Really THAT bad?

by Evan M. Peck

The primary view of the graph compares the average cost of tuition, room, and board vs. the median income of a US household (more on that later). It's a nice view of the data, but as my roommate said, "Everyone talks about how much tuition is going up. I would've guessed the slopes would look different" And it's true. From this view, it looks like tuition, room and board are going up at a reasonable rate - almost parallel to income. In fact, by hovering the mouse over the shaded area (representing the difference between income and tuition+room), we can see that income after college has actually gone up. Surprising.

But the real story isn't how much income we have left. The real story is How has the percentage of income we spend on college changed?. I wanted a view that accentuated these ratios; that better demonstrated how the sacrifice of sending a student to college has changed over time. But I also wanted it to be concrete. I didn't want to simply map percentage points, but translate those percentages into hard cash. To show this perspective, I created a view that normalized the data to tuition, room, and board. It only takes a moment or two of seeing this new view to understand that this is a much more informative perspective of the data.

Perhaps the most damning dimension of this whole story is the data that isn't in the visualization. I could only find numbers accurate up to 2007. However, from the perspective of tuition vs. income, the last two years have been among the most catastophic in US history. While the increase of median income has grinded to a halt over the recession, many universities have continued to raise tuition at a record pace. If someone can find me the numbers, I would be happy to include them in my visualization. My guess is that the inclusion would be startling.

Data

Median Household Income in the United States :: US Census Bureau
I chose not to use the mean income since it is heavily skewed by the richest 2% in the US. In this case, the median better represents the average American household.

Average Tuition, Fees, Room and Board at Private Colleges in the United States :: National Center for Education Statistics
In contrast with income, tuition at universities is more evenly distributed, so mean income is a fair representation.,

Some Viz Design Notes

- Took away the line showing the y-axis. I thought it was distracting.
- Took away x and y axis labels. I thought the title made it clear enough.
- I chose green to indicate income, and shaded in the income of a household after paying for a year of college.
- Because tuition + room is simply combining two of the variables already on the graph, I decreased the line width of the tuition variable and the room variable.