What this does
The page Schools/Universities With No Tuition Data lists the schools in your state that the site cannot cost out, because no usable tuition figure exists for them. As the page puts it: These institutions are excluded from ROI rankings and calculator selection because the current dataset does not contain usable tuition data for them yet.
Without this list, a school you care about could simply be missing from the degree lists and you would not know why. Here you can confirm that it exists in the federal records, see what kind of school it is and how many programs it has, and open its program list.
It helps a student who cannot find a school on a degree's page, a parent checking a small or specialised college, and a counselor who needs to explain why a local school has no cost or ROI figures.
Before you start
- Open the page from the Schools/Universities With No Tuition Data card on the home page.
- Pick a state in Showing data for. With no state set, the page shows only Pick a state to see schools with no tuition data. and the state menu.
- Have the school's name handy. The search matches names only, not cities.
Step by step
- Open the page. While it loads you see Loading — this may take a moment on first load…
- If asked, choose a state in Showing data for. The page reloads.
- Look under Excluded From ROI Lists. A count line reads "N schools found." Schools that have program records come first, then the rest, each group A to Z.
- Type in Search school or university (the box reads Type a school or university name). The list refreshes a moment after you stop typing, and the count line becomes "N schools found matching "your words"."
- Read a card: name, city, then a line such as "Private nonprofit · Number of programs: N · View programs →".
- Click a card that ends in View programs →. The school's program list opens. See One school's programs. Cards that end in No programs available cannot be clicked.
Every control explained
| Control | Where | What it changes | Default | Tips |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Showing data for | Top of the page | The state whose schools are listed. Picking a state reloads the page. | The state you last picked on this device | No United States choice here; schools are listed one state at a time. |
| Search school or university (box reads Type a school or university name) | Filter card above the list | Keeps schools whose name contains every word you type, in any order | Empty | "state college" finds "College of the State …" too. City names are not searched. |
| School card with View programs → | Under Excluded From ROI Lists | Opens the school's program list | — | Shown when the school has at least one program on record. |
| School card with No programs available | Under Excluded From ROI Lists, after the schools with programs | Nothing; the card is greyed out and cannot be clicked | — | The school is in the federal list of institutions but has no program records here. |
Reading the results
Which schools appear
A school is listed when it is on your state's list of schools but has no usable in-state tuition from either source the site uses:
- IPEDS (the federal postsecondary data system). Outside Texas the site lists the schools in the newest IPEDS year and, for each one, looks for tuition in the newest IPEDS year that has a usable figure, since IPEDS publishes tuition months after it publishes its list of schools.
- The U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, used as a fallback when IPEDS has no usable figure.
A tuition figure is usable only if it is more than $0 and at most $80,000 a year. So a school appears here when its in-state tuition, in both sources, is missing, is $0 (which means "not reported"), or is above $80,000 (which is a whole-program total or a source error, not a yearly charge). A school that has left the newest College Scorecard release is not listed at all.
The cards
| Item | Meaning | Unit | Source and year | How it is computed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count line (N schools found.) | How many schools match | Schools | — | Near-duplicate names in the same city are counted once. |
| Name | The school | Text | Texas: the site's school list built from IPEDS. Other states: IPEDS institution records, newest year | One card per school. |
| City | Where the school is | Text | Same | Reads City unavailable when none is recorded. |
| School type | Who runs the school | Label | IPEDS control of institution | In plain words: Public, Private nonprofit, Private for-profit or Community college. Type not reported when the records do not say. |
| Number of programs: N | How many programs the school has on record | Programs | Texas: IPEDS completions. Other states: College Scorecard Field-of-Study file | Distinct fields of study, counted once at the undergraduate level and once at the graduate level, leaving out unclassified and untitled programs. |
| View programs → / No programs available | Whether there is a program list to open | — | — | Depends on whether the number of programs is above zero. |
| No excluded schools found matching your search. | No school matches your words | — | — | Try fewer words or part of a word. |
| ⚠ Could not load the list of schools. Please try again. | The list could not be fetched | — | — | Reload the page. The page never substitutes a different list of schools when the request fails. |
No money figures appear on this page, by design: these are the schools for which no usable figure exists.
Read more about how the figures are produced.
Worked example
A student in Massachusetts wants to study at a small health-sciences college but cannot find it on the nursing degree's page.
- He opens Schools/Universities With No Tuition Data with Massachusetts chosen. The count line shows how many Massachusetts schools have no usable tuition.
- He types two words of the college's name. The list narrows to one card: the college, its city, and "Private nonprofit · Number of programs: N · View programs →".
- Now he knows why it was missing: its reported tuition is either absent, $0, or a figure above $80,000 that looks like a whole-program total.
- He clicks the card. The program list shows its undergraduate and graduate programs with yearly graduate counts, but the chips do not open the calculator.
- To compare costs, he goes back to Degrees, opens the nursing field and looks at other Massachusetts schools, then checks this college's tuition directly with the school.
Common questions
- Does being on this list mean the school is free, or very expensive?
- Neither. It means no plausible yearly tuition is on record. A $0 means "not reported", and a figure above $80,000 is almost always a total for a whole program or a data error, so the site hides both rather than guess.
- Why does a school I can pick in the ROI Calculator also appear here?
- Outside Texas, the calculator's school list and the degree pages' school tables include every school in the newest IPEDS year, with or without tuition. Those schools show "—" for cost. In Texas, schools without tuition appear only here.
- Why can't I click some cards?
- Cards that end in No programs available have no program records here, so there is nothing to open.
- Why doesn't searching for a town work?
- The search matches school names only. Scroll the list, or search for a word in the school's name.
- Why does the type say "Type not reported"?
- The federal records do not say whether the school is public or private.
- Will a school leave this list?
- Yes, when IPEDS or the College Scorecard publishes a usable tuition for it. New data releases are loaded from time to time.
What this does NOT do
- It does not estimate or fill in tuition for these schools.
- It does not judge the schools. Missing tuition is a gap in the data, not a mark against the school.
- It is not advice, and it is not an admissions or application site.
- It stores nothing about you. Sign-in is only for saving reports.
- It does not show costs, salaries or ranks for these schools, and their programs cannot be opened in the ROI Calculator.
Related
- One school's programs: what opens when you click a card.
- Degrees and a degree's page: the lists these schools are left out of.
- ROI Calculator: model a school that has tuition data.
- Home page tiles: where the link to this page lives.
- Choosing a state: how the Showing data for menu works.
- Open the live page: Schools/Universities With No Tuition Data.