We’re closing the information gap

Using high-quality data and intelligent data coordination, we help students successfully navigate college, attain a degree, and graduate without debt.

High-quality data

Our data quality standards

Accurate

We source every piece of information directly from educational institutions and validate it through 16 steps of verification. What results is information that is more accurate than what can be found in any other institutional or public database.

Relevant

Other tools claim to help students with college decisions but forget what really matters to them: completing a degree that's worth the money and time. We give students the actionable information they need to make these life-changing choices.

Up-to-date

All other data sets, whether from private companies or government, are at least a year outdated. To meet changing institutional requirements, we continually update our data to ensure it is current to the latest academic year.

Our data sets

Degree requirements

  • Degree requirements
  • General education requirements
  • Course details from catalogs

School requirements

  • University requirements
  • Community college requirements

State requirements

  • All applicable state requirements

To build a tool like Tasseled, we needed comprehensive data on degree requirements, general education, course details, and specific school and state requirements. We found that no third-party vendor provided all this information accurately. So, we decided to collect and verify the necessary data ourselves, creating the most accurate and comprehensive academic data set available.

Transfer information

  • Transfer equivalency tables
  • Articulation agreements
  • Transfer guides

Transfer requirements

  • Minimum transfer credit requirements
  • Maximum transfer credit allowances

Transfer information is disparate and inconsistent, making it hard to find and use. That's why we created a centralized repository of transfer data. We gather information from transfer equivalency tables, articulation agreements, and transfer guides, then validate it to remove any outdated or incorrectly recorded transfers. Additionally, we collect transfer requirements from each institution to ensure that students using Tasseled always meet transfer requirements and never exceed any transfer allowances.

Tuition

  • Sourced directly from each institution
  • Current to the latest academic year

Fees

  • One-time fees
  • Per credit fees
  • Per course fees
  • Per semester fees

Currently, the government's IPEDS data set is the primary source of tuition and fee information, but it is two years old, only distinguishes between in-state and out-of-state prices, and lacks detailed fee information. That's why we created our own data set with information current to the latest academic year, making it more up-to-date than IPEDS or any other source. By collecting information directly from institutions, we offer students the latest costs, precise pricing, and a comprehensive fee breakdown.

Intelligent data coordination

Our data coordination principles

Easy-to-understand

High-quality data is only useful if it is presented in the right way. We deliver plans that are easy to comprehend so students can best take advantage of the information we arm them with.

Reliable

We use credits that have already been approved by institutions to guide students on future transfers, allowing us to create safe, proven degree plans based on documented pathways.

Risk-averse

We decided never to compromise on certainty of outcome. While we strive to minimize costs and maximize student benefits, we never do so at the risk of recommending the wrong path.

Our data coordination processes

To create a Tasseled plan, we first identify all the classes needed for a degree. This can be challenging due to various constraints in degree requirements, such as choosing from hundreds of courses or specific course combinations. Crafting uses our academic data to intuitively select the right classes, ensuring a complete and accurate list of required courses for each degree.

After producing the required course list, we identify which classes are able to be replaced by community college equivalents. Using our transfer data set, Replacing leverages transfer precedent to select the correct courses, ensuring students are always recommended transferable replacements.

Once we've identified eligible replacement courses, we organize them into a semester-by-semester plan. Sequencing ensures courses follow prerequisite and corequisite requirements while creating a balanced, evenly-distributed credit load across semesters.

Once a plan has been created, we calculate costs. Pricing uses tuition and fees data to compute course costs by applying per-credit tuition prices and relevant fees. This allows for accurate price comparisons between community college classes and their university equivalents. By also calculating semester fees, we provide students with a detailed cost outlook at the course, semester, and overall plan levels.