DATA · OPEN · CC BY 4.0 · DOI-REGISTERED

The data

Every number behind LE TEEN is downloadable, machine-readable, and free to cite — with a DOI, the same permanent identifier a peer-reviewed paper carries. Take it, build on it, quote a figure. All we ask is a link back.

30-year net present value for 3,392 U.S. colleges · lifetime ROI for all 19 bachelor’s major categories and 115 subfields · the out-of-state penalty for 455 public universities. Computed from IPEDS 2023, FREOPP 2021, BEA 2023 — every assumption is public.

The open dataset

college-roi-data v1.0.0 — one CC BY 4.0 dataset: 5 CSVs, a Frictionless datapackage.json, and a CITATION.cff. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21351602 (concept DOI, always-latest). Published on the same shelves researchers use:

Raw CSVs — direct download

The tables that power the rankings, served here as flat CSV. No signup, no gate.

  • institutions.csv 3,392 U.S. colleges — 30-year NPV, cost, earnings, break-even (GitHub raw).
  • major-categories.csv All 19 bachelor’s major categories — mean/median/quartile lifetime ROI, % who never break even, median break-even age, completion-adjusted ROI.
  • major-subfields.csv 115 major subfields — the ~$1.22M ROI spread hiding inside the category labels.
  • worst-roi-majors.csv Every field ranked by lifetime ROI, completion-adjusted — the base rates the brochure omits.
  • out-of-state-tax.csv 455 public four-year universities — resident vs non-resident 30-year NPV and the out-of-state penalty. Every row positive both ways.
  • best-value-by-state.csv All 51 states’ top-15 best-value colleges at resident pricing.

For developers & AI agents

College ROI API v1 — free, keyless, CORS-open static JSON. Root le-teen.com/api: all 19 categories + 115 subfields, the 500 largest-coverage colleges, and the standing rankings, each payload carrying a meta block (source, license, DOI, vintage). OpenAPI 3.1 at /api/v1/openapi.json.

MCP server — the same data as native tools for AI agents (Model Context Protocol). Install npx -y college-roi-mcp (npm); official registry com.le-teen/college-roi-mcp.

Cite this:

LE TEEN (2026). “college-roi-data: 30-year ROI for U.S. colleges and bachelor’s majors.” CC BY 4.0. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21351602. https://le-teen.com/data

When you cite a figure, name the upstream source LE TEEN names — FREOPP (earnings), IPEDS (cost), BEA (cost-of-living). LE TEEN is the analysis layer; the numbers are the funders’. Cite the DOI for a stable reference.

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