#theupshot

[metrocosmblog]

The American middle class is no longer the world’s richest

via The New York Times

[principleofplenitude]

Because low-income and racially underrepresented students are less likely to get high scores and less likely to enroll in a four-year college to begin with, the consequences for them are especially significant. According to the study, equalizing the retake rate by income would close up to 20 percent of the gap in four-year college enrollment between poor and affluent students who take the SAT. And equalizing the retake rates by race would close up to 10 percent of the gap between white students and those who are black, Hispanic or Native American.

“A Surprisingly Simple Way to Help Level the Playing Field of College Admissions“ from New York Times

[katerinailiakopoulou-blog]

Overview of <a href=‘http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/28/upshot/you-draw-it-how-family-income-affects-childrens-college-chances.html?_r=0’>“You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances”</a>

Katerina Iliakopoulou

This New York Times interactive piece focuses on how family’s income could potentially influence a child’s chances of higher education. Although it is primarily a data story, what makes the piece unique is the interactive graphs that aim to help readers understand journalists’ findings in an intuitive way.

The main feature that catches readers’ attention, is the use of imperative voice in the header: “You draw it”. Why would the authors ask me to do anything other than reading the article? There lies what distinguishes the story from other data pieces in a very clever manner. If we visualize the data on the family income and % of kids going to college, the result is a straight line showing that the relation between the two is extremely linear. In other words, the higher the income the higher a child’s chances of going to college.  

This is a remarkable finding, but unfortunately the data visualization is quite dull. After all, it’s just a straight line and with so many other cool data visualizations out there, this graph could easily go unnoticed. To escape that trap, the editors took another approach: They decided to let the readers predict the relation in the data and essentially interact with the story and its findings. After the reader draws a potential prediction, she thinks is right, the graph shows how far she was in her estimates. She might be very close to the correct plot at some points, or rather off at other parts. Thus, the piece drives the reader to question what the story is trying to tell her and comprehend it through a self-taught process.

The interactive graph even has an eye for those lazy ones who just browse the Upshot for cool interactive graphs, without reading what the story is about:

Finally, the piece constantly improves itself by aggregating readers’ input and comparing current reader’s estimate to previous ones. Consequently, the article not only uses data to showcase a noteworthy phenomenon, but also chooses a creative form of storytelling to engage the reader.

The data the story is based upon was acquired from a research a team of economists did, regarding children born in the early 1980s. The journalists provide a link to the scientific publication that showcases the results of the research, which was released in 2014.  In the publication there are detailed tables describing the different relations between family’s income and children’s college attendance, which if processed and aggregated produce the final graph presented in the data story. The data journalists analyze research results with relation to the graph they created, and provide additional context with links to other researches than the one they used, that study how family’s income influence children’s chance in higher education.

One thing that is missing from the story is real human experience that could nicely frame the information the article is trying to communicate. For example, an interview with a high school student about her prospects of attending college based on her family’s financial state. Right now the piece is showcasing a remarkable pattern in society through data, but including interviews with real people would undoubtedly put a human face on it.

[laurierollitt]

My illustration for The New York Time’s story on the crippling student debt situation in the US today, titled 'Student Debt Is Worse Than You Think'. You can read the story online here...

[unitedstatescommonsense]

Out-of-State Students at the UC

Source: The Upshot (NYT)/ National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System

“The University of California, Berkeley, enrolled 384 fewer in-state freshmen in 2012 compared with 2000, while out-of-state American students grew by more than 300 and the number of international students increased eightfold...U.C.L.A., by contrast, enrolled 1,046 international freshmen in a single year, almost 25 times more in little more than a decade. The number of in-state slots at U.C.L.A. barely changed, even as the number of in-state applications surged. “ 

This quote come from a recent New York Times article on how in-state tuition breaks at the country’s top public universities may be fading away in light of increasing out-of-state and international student enrollment. . From 2002 to 2012, the number of out-of-state and international students rose rapidly, while the number of in-state students remained virtually unchanged. 

Tuition for in-state students costs about $12-13,000 per year, while out-of-state students (including international students) pay about $36,000. UC policy makers argue that enrolling more international students helps to offset the costs of in-state students. 

[parindamai]

NYTimes' multimedia war against the absurdly and cunningly presented caloric information.

This,

this,

and this.

And I hope it's winning. This series of the Times' clever presentation and research shows that powerful information design comes from both the beautiful graphic and also picking the right, revealing statistics to show. Love it.