{
  "alt": "Scatter plot of college median earnings against cost of attendance with dots sized by enrollment and colored by sector. Dots slope upward from the lower left to the upper right. Public colleges cluster at low cost, private nonprofit colleges at high cost and mixed earnings, and for-profit colleges are spread across cost with many at low earnings. Two median lines divide the plot into four quadrants, and the lower-right quadrant contains most of the for-profit dots.",
  "caption": "Dots rise from the lower left to the upper right, and the lower-right quadrant, which costs more than the median and earns the median or less, holds {fact:n_cl} colleges, mostly for-profit and private nonprofit. The lines mark the medians across the plotted colleges, {fact:cost_med} for cost and {fact:earn_med} for earnings, and colors give the sector.",
  "data": [],
  "id": "earnings_vs_cost",
  "notes": [
    "The plot has {fact:n_scatter} colleges with a published cost of attendance, median earnings and at least {fact:min_ugds_scatter} undergraduates. The cost of attendance is published for academic-year institutions only, so many short for-profit programs are not in it, and for-profit colleges are a small part of the plot.",
    "The quadrant lines are medians and the intervals for the shares come from a bootstrap over states that redraws the medians in every replicate. Dollar axes mix academic year 2021 to 2022 costs with earnings in 2022 dollars, which are close in time."
  ],
  "source": "College Scorecard, most recent cohorts, May 2025 release (cost of attendance, academic year 2021-2022; earnings of the 2009-2011 entering classes); unweighted, each college counted once",
  "spec": {
    "colors": {
      "For-profit": "cat3",
      "Private nonprofit": "cat2",
      "Public": "cat1"
    },
    "group": "sector",
    "label": "label",
    "payload": "earnings_vs_cost.json",
    "quadrants": {
      "labels": [
        "Costs less, earns more",
        "Costs more, earns more",
        "Costs less, earns the median or less",
        "Costs more, earns the median or less"
      ],
      "x": 24602,
      "y": 46092
    },
    "size": "enrollment",
    "sizeLabel": "Undergraduate enrollment",
    "x": "cost",
    "xDomain": [
      0,
      90000
    ],
    "xFormat": {
      "digits": 0,
      "prefix": "$",
      "thousands": true
    },
    "xLabel": "Average annual cost of attendance (dollars)",
    "y": "earnings",
    "yDomain": [
      0,
      150000
    ],
    "yFormat": {
      "digits": 0,
      "prefix": "$",
      "thousands": true
    },
    "yLabel": "Median earnings a decade after entry (2022 dollars)"
  },
  "subtitle": "Median earnings a decade after entry (2022 dollars) against the average annual cost of attendance (academic year 2021 to 2022), one dot per college, dot area is undergraduate enrollment",
  "title": "Former students of costlier colleges tend to earn more, a correlation of {fact:r_cost_earn}, but {fact:share_cl_forprofit} of plotted for-profit colleges cost more than the median and have median earnings at or below it",
  "type": "scatter",
  "width": "wide"
}