The purpose of this project is to provide insights and guidance for colleges and policymakers to improve graduation rates, taking into account the relationship with full-time enrollment and the distinctions between public and private institutions.
Furthermore, we analyze the college graduation rates in United States colleges and investigate whether there is a correlation between the size of a college's full-time enrollment and its graduation rates. The aim here is to determine if there are any significant differences in this relationship between public and private institutions. By addressing these questions, valuable insights into the factors that influence college graduation rates can be determined, which can inform policy decisions and educational strategies to improve student success.
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Data Collection: Gathered data from Kaggle that include information about college graduation rates, full-time enrollment figures, and institutional characteristics. Ensured that the dataset is clean and properly structured for analysis.
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Data Preprocessing: Performed data cleaning to address missing values, outliers, and inconsistencies. Prepared the dataset for analysis by merging and structuring it appropriately.
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Exploratory Data Analysis: Conducted exploratory data analysis (EDA) to gain a deeper understanding of the dataset and identify any initial trends or patterns. Created visualizations, such as scatterplots and histograms, to visualize the data distribution and relationships between variables.
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Hypothesis Formulation: Formulate two main hypotheses -
Hypothesis 1 - There is an inverse relationship between full-time enrollment and college graduation rates.
Hypothesis 2 - The relationship between full-time enrollment and graduation rates varies significantly between public and private institutions.
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Data Analysis: Utilized statistical methods such as t-tests, and regression to test the formulated hypotheses. Assessed the strength and significance of relationships between variables.
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Interpretation of Results: Analyzed the statistical findings to draw meaningful conclusions. Explained the implications of the results in the context of college graduation rates and institutional type (public vs. private).
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Visualization and Reporting: Created clear and informative data visualizations that highlight important trends and relationships. Prepared a comprehensive report or presentation summarizing the project's objectives, methods, findings, and conclusions.
- Recommendations: Encourage private institutions with larger full-time enrollments to continue their successful practices that contribute to higher graduation rates, while also considering targeted support for smaller private and public schools to improve their retention strategies.