College Navigator Scraper
Pricing
from $19.00 / 1,000 results
College Navigator Scraper
Scrapes institution profiles from the NCES College Navigator by state FIPS code and IPEDS year. Returns each college as a flat row with IPEDS ID, enrollment, tuition, admissions, retention, and graduation data.
Pricing
from $19.00 / 1,000 results
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ParseForge
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College Navigator Scraper
Scrape institution profiles from the NCES College Navigator, up to a million per run. Every college comes with its IPEDS ID, enrollment, tuition, admissions rates, retention, graduation data, and website. Filter by state and reporting year. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
The NCES College Navigator is the official U.S. government source for postsecondary institution data, but downloading it manually means clicking through pages one state at a time. This Actor reads the public IPEDS data directly, letting you pull thousands of college profiles filtered by state FIPS code and reporting year. Each result lands in a flat, structured row ready for analysis or enrichment.
| Who uses it | What they scrape College Navigator for |
|---|---|
| Higher education researchers | Comparing enrollment trends and graduation rates across states for a given IPEDS year. |
| Enrollment marketers | Building lead lists of institutions with their websites and admissions contact data. |
| Data journalists | Pulling tuition and retention figures to report on college affordability. |
| Education consultants | Benchmarking client institutions against peer schools on admissions yield and graduation rates. |
What it does
This Actor collects institution profiles from the NCES College Navigator by state and IPEDS year, and returns each one as a flat row with identifiers, enrollment, tuition, admissions, and outcome metrics.
- 🗺️ State filter: supply a two-digit FIPS code to limit results to one state, or leave blank to scrape all states.
- 📅 IPEDS year selector: choose any reporting year from 2010 through 2024 to get the snapshot you need.
- 🔢 Volume control: set a maximum number of colleges to cap the run, from a single test record up to one million.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with College Navigator data
📊 Build a state-level education dashboard.
A policy analyst pulls all California institutions for the latest IPEDS year to populate a Tableau dashboard with enrollment and tuition figures.
🎯 Generate a lead list for edtech sales.
A sales team scrapes every four-year college website and admissions contact in the Northeast to build a targeted outreach list.
📈 Track retention and graduation trends.
A researcher collects five years of IPEDS data to measure how first-year retention rates changed after the pandemic.
🏫 Compare peer institutions.
A college administrator pulls profiles for 50 competitor schools to benchmark tuition, acceptance rates, and graduation outcomes.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| Official NCES data | Every field comes straight from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the authoritative federal source. |
| Fixed flat schema | One row per institution, same columns every run, no nested JSON to unpack. |
| Multi-format export | Download your dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for any downstream tool. |
| No API key needed | Reads the public College Navigator pages directly with no registration or OAuth. |
How it compares
This Actor focuses on the official NCES College Navigator source with state and year filters, while other scrapers may bundle multiple data sources or target different education datasets.
| Feature | ParseForge | NCES College Navigator Scraper | Nces College Scraper | US Schools, Districts & Colleges Scraper - Education Leads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State FIPS code filter | Yes | Not listed | Not listed | Yes |
| IPEDS year selection (2010-2024) | Yes | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Enrollment and tuition data | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Yes |
| Admissions and retention rates | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Graduation rate data | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| College president and staff counts | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor with a state FIPS code and an IPEDS reporting year, alone or together, and the max items cap stops the run once you have enough records. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
A larger pull:
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $2.10 |
| 1,000 results | $21.00 |
| 10,000 results | $210.00 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the College Navigator Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to College Navigator through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results?
Check that your FIPS code is a valid two-digit string. Also verify that the IPEDS year you selected is between 2010 and 2024. If both are correct, try running without a FIPS filter to confirm data is available.
The run stopped before collecting all colleges in my state.
Increase the max items value. The Actor stops as soon as it reaches that number, even if more institutions exist for your filters.
Some fields are empty in my output.
Not every institution reports every metric to IPEDS. Smaller or specialized schools may omit admissions rates, SAT scores, or tuition data. Empty cells reflect missing source data, not a scraping error.
The run is taking a long time.
Scraping all states without a FIPS filter will visit every institution page. Set a specific state FIPS code or lower the max items to speed up the run.
I got an error about an invalid FIPS code.
FIPS codes must be exactly two digits as a string. For single-digit codes like Alabama (1), enter it as 01 with the leading zero.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is a FIPS code and where do I find one? | A FIPS code is a two-digit numeric identifier for each U.S. state. You can find the full list on the Census Bureau website. For example, 06 is California, 36 is New York, and 44 is Rhode Island. |
| Can I scrape all states in one run? | Yes. Leave the State FIPS Code field blank and the Actor will iterate through every state, collecting institutions until it hits your max items limit. |
| What IPEDS years are available? | The Actor supports reporting years from 2010 through 2024. The default is 2022, which is typically the most recent year with complete data. |
| Does this include community colleges and trade schools? | Yes. The College Navigator covers all Title IV participating institutions, including two-year colleges, four-year universities, and technical schools. |
| What data fields does each row contain? | Each row includes the institution name, IPEDS unit ID, website, sector, enrollment, tuition, admissions rates, retention, graduation rates, and more. The exact fields are shown in the sample output on the Actor's page. |
| Is this the same data as the NCES website? | Yes. The Actor reads the public College Navigator pages at nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator, which are powered by the IPEDS database. |
| Can I filter by institution type or degree level? | The input schema provides a state FIPS filter and year selector. Additional filters like sector or degree level are not currently built into the input, but you can filter the flat output in your spreadsheet or database after the run. |
| How many colleges can I scrape in one run? | You can set the maximum up to 1,000,000. The full College Navigator contains roughly 7,000 institutions, so a single run can easily cover the entire country. |
| Do I need an NCES account or API key? | No. The Actor reads the public College Navigator pages directly. No registration, API key, or authentication is required. |
| What export formats are supported? | You can export your dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by National Center for Education Statistics. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
