IPEDS

The Modal Institution of Higher Education

I have enjoyed NPR’s Planet Money podcast for many years. They always have an interesting perspective on matters foreign and domestic; macro and micro; trivial and critical. It’s also a space that doesn’t shy away from wonky, data-filled policy debates. A recent episode, The Modal American, talked listeners through a full analytic pipeline including the research question, an explanation of the methodology and the results. Planet Money’s specific research question was whether they could aggregate IPUMS data (Go Gophers!