The Abilities of Our Visuals
With the cleaned data, we used R to visualize if the rising cost of Carleton has impacted the enrollment of non-White students – with US residency. The line graphs displayed were made using the ‘plotly’ library. Each graph has interactivity capabilities; the user can select their desired categories to display by pressing a category in the legend, affecting the data’s visibility. Under each graph is a slide range tool that can be altered to show data from specific periods; this allows users to take a closer look at the changes from year to year to help further understand how each measured cost changes over time.
The displayed graphs are not interacive because they are still images of the data. Our interactive graphs can be found HERE.
The two graphs displayed visualize the different costs of Carleton College and the racial and ethnic demographics of Carleton College from 2013 to 2021.
Affording Carleton
‘Affording Carleton’ tracks four indirect and direct costs for Carleton College from 2013-2021. The cost of tuition is classified as ‘Carleton Tuition Cost’. The cost due by students post grants and loans to Carleton College is under ‘Cost Due Post Aid’. The total cost of books, transportation, and room and board expenses is ‘Total Cost Of Other Expenses’, and the total cost of all the indirect and direct costs of Carleton College is under ‘Comprehensive Cost’; this category tracks the change of tuition and other expenses. Each one of these costs underwent an increase over time, with Carleton Tuition Cost’ increasing by ~15% from 2013 to 2021. This influx in tuition and the ~5% increase in ‘Total Cost Of Other Expenses’ influenced an overall ~18% increase in the ‘Comprehensive Cost’ from 2013 to 2021. Despite a significant increase in the ‘Comprehensive Cost’, the cost due post-aid managed to remain within the same cost range of ~30k with a dip in the data in the years 2016 to 2018 when there seems to have been a ~3k decrease in the ‘Cost Due Post Aid’ despite the steadily increasing comprehensive cost.
The change in ‘Cost Due Post Aid’ implies efforts by Carleton College to meet student needs despite the rapidly increasing cost of attendance.
Carleton Admissions by Race and Ethnicity
‘Carleton Admissions by Race and Ethnicity’ tracks data from 2013-2021 concerning the proportion of each racial and ethnic identity enrolled at Carleton College by the entire enrollment population. This graph looked at nine racial and ethnic groups at Carleton College: Black, Hispanic, Native, International, Hawaiian, Multiracial, Asian, International, and Unknown students. The categorization of some of these groups, such as International, Multiracial, and Unknown students, implies there are some limitations in our data because the racial identity of these groups is unclear. We will not consider Multiracial, Unknown, and International student data in analyzing our results for the sake of unknown racial identity. However, our data projects a significantly low proportion of all racial and ethnic groups at Carleton vs. the enrollment of White students, despite an overall increase of non-White racial groups from 2013 to 2021.
In 2013, each non-White group comprised less than 9% of the student enrollment. Meanwhile, White students made up about 66% percent of the student body. The groups with the lowest enrollment percentages in 2013 are Black(~3.57%), Hawaiian(~.1%), and Native(~.1%) students. These three groups remained the lowest racial groups admitted into Carleton College, even in 2021. There appears to be no significant increase in non-White Admissions. The rise in non-White enrolled students is a consistent ~1% increase for all non-White identities besides Native and Hawaiian students, which increased less than 1%.
Nevertheless, a ~10% decrease in White students from 2013 to 2012 implies there is most likely a growing effort to diversify Carleton College’s enrollment.
Overall
The changes in enrolled students by racial and ethnic demographics at Carleton College are not significant enough to infer whether or not the rising cost of attending Carleton College is inhibiting the enrollment of non-White students. The relatively consistent cost of ‘Cost Due Post Aid’ from 2013 to 2021 denounces a relationship between the affordability of Carleton and how it impacts the enrollment of non-White students as the rise in the ‘Comprehensive Cost’ is something Carleton College seems to recognize when awarding aid. However, observing who and how Carleton distributes this aid among the admitted student body could help us further research a relationship between affording Carleton and its implications on non-White student enrollment.
