About Project College
Choosing a college is one of the largest financial decisions most families ever make — and almost everyone makes it on brochures, rankings, and gut feel. Project College exists to replace that with the public data and the math: what a school actually costs you, what its graduates actually earn, and how likely you actually are to get in.
What we believe
Public data, not marketing spin
Every number you see traces back to a government or school-published source — College Scorecard, IPEDS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census, and schools’ own Common Data Sets. We do the math; we don’t invent the numbers.
The cost you’ll actually pay
Sticker price is theater. We show net price by income band, projected total cost over four years, and the debt you’d likely carry — so a family can compare what a school really costs them, not what the brochure implies.
Outcomes over prestige
We weight median earnings ten years out, graduation rates, and program-level results — measured against national benchmarks — instead of rankings built on reputation surveys.
Honest about uncertainty
Match scores are probabilistic estimates, not promises. Where data is missing or lagged, we say so rather than papering over it. Our full method is public on the methodology page.
Where the numbers come from
We don’t run our own surveys or sell placement. The data is public; our work is collecting it, cross-checking it, and turning it into decisions a family can use.
- •College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education)
- •IPEDS (National Center for Education Statistics)
- •Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
- •U.S. Census / American Community Survey
- •Common Data Set (school-published)
- •FIRE (campus free-speech ratings)
Want the exact weights and formulas? Read the methodology.
Who builds it
Project College is built and operated by Digent LLC. We are independent — not owned by, paid by, or affiliated with any college, lender, or admissions consultancy. We don’t take referral fees from schools, and we don’t rank a school higher because it paid us. Families pay a one-time fee; that is the whole business model.
We launched recently, so you won’t find a wall of customer quotes here yet — we’d rather show you the data and let it speak. As real families use the tool and choose to share their experience, we’ll let them speak for themselves.
See your numbers
One price, per student, no subscription. The public data and the math behind every school on your list.
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