Education Datapalooza

Guess what type of debt is greater than credit card debt? Student debt.

Last week, a battalion of educators, private-sector entrepreneurs and organizations convened for the Education Datapalooza, organized by the Department of Education. The challenge was to use released government data to try to tackle President Obama’s plan to make college more affordable. “Attending college is more important than ever, yet it’s never been more expensive,” stated US Secretary Arne Duncan.

College costs continue to increase. Textbook prices have risen three times the rate of inflation over the past decade. Cecilia Munoz, assistant to President Obama, shared that in the time that the family income has increased by 16%, the cost of college has increased by 250%. After college, students aren’t doing much better. The average graduate has $29K in student debt and not guaranteed a job. Higher education costs are clearly out of whack.

One solution, hopes the government, is to unlock troves of government data related to education (jump to the end of this story for a list). Nick Sinai, deputy chief technology officer, argued that opening government data both increases college participation by helping students make better choices about schooling and can even stir up $3 trillion in economic growth (especially if you count all the time saved simplifying the application process).

Among the 600 educators, entrepreneurs and others who gathered at the Ronald Reagan Amphitheater in Washington, DC, for the edu-palooza were some who brought examples of what could be done with the government data. Among them:

* Abigail Seldin shared an open data feature recently added to College Abacus, a free site that serves as a financial aid calculator;

* Adam Phillabaum, formerly of PayScale.com, created How’s My Offer to help students evaluate their offers from different colleges;

* Several professors at the Harvard Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning launched ABLConnect, a platform that aims to foster activity-based learning and community;

* Student Success Academy is tackling increased access to college and career counseling by taking advantage of government data, crowdsourcing and virtual conferencing;

* With the help of $2.5 million, mostly from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, College Summit launched a series of 19 apps (one more to come) to help navigate the college process, including College Abacus, and created a one-stop portal: CollegeAppMap.org;

* Four college students spent four weeks building a demonstration site, This is Grit, that they hope will become an inspirational font of stories and social media about what it takes to succeed.

*Basno CEO Nicholas Thorne, and Dean of NYU School of Continuing and Professional Development, Dennis Di Lorenzo, partnered to create a new digital badging program to explain more clearly to employers what specific skills their certificates indicated.

Some of the attending entrepreneurs described their ongoing work: Ariel Diaz, CEO of Boundless, which is striving to cut textbook prices, pointed out that 7 out of 10 college students choose not to buy their textbooks because of finances. Deputy Secretary of Education, James Shelton, drove that point home when he shared that he himself was one of those students his senior year.

Looking for a challenge? Here’s one: Shelton announced that the DOE wants to make it easier for students and families to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Coming soon: a Request for Information (RFI) from the department to gather ideas and feedback on what Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for key education data, programs, and frequently used forms—including the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)--would benefit students and consumers the most. Seems like the data jamboree will continue.

(Government) Data, Data Everywhere