College Scorecard Institution Operating Status Portfolio Monitor

Watch a book of IPEDS UNITIDs (preferred) and/or OPEIDs (secondary) and emit typed operating / ownership events when the official US Dept of Education College Scorecard API shows an institution flipping school.operating (open ↔ closed) or changing school.ownership.

Not a Scorecard outcomes / earnings / student-debt dump. Not an Ofsted URN inspection twin. Not an Ofqual AO/qualification twin. Not a Title IV PEPS eligibility / cohort-default / financial-responsibility composite claim. Not unpaid ed-SaaS.

Who this is for: Student lenders and guaranty agencies, edtech compliance, institutional risk desks, and researchers watching a named book of schools for closure or ownership flips.

Quick start

1. Replace the example UNITIDs/OPEIDs with your watchlist.
2. Set sourceMode = live (free DEMO_KEY OK for smoke; prefer DATA_GOV_API_KEY for production).
3. Save as an Actor Task and schedule (e.g. weekly).
4. First run vs later runs: run 1 baselines each key (no change events, no product charge). Run 2+ emits diffs — keep the same Task.

Default sourceMode=fixture is a free health check (one non-billable RUN_STATUS row), not product data.

Matching honesty

• Primary key: UNITID (id) exact match after normalize (digits; leading zeros stripped).
• Secondary key: OPEID — prefer ope8_id (8 digits); 6-digit ope6 accepted and padded with trailing 00.
• Name / accreditor / state / city / ownership label are evidence fields, not alternate match keys.
• First observation of each watch key = baseline only (no product charge).

Events (PPE)

Event	When
SCORECARD_OPERATING_OPEN	school.operating becomes 1, or appears on Scorecard as operating
SCORECARD_OPERATING_CLOSED	school.operating becomes 0, or drops off Scorecard for the watch key
SCORECARD_OWNERSHIP_CHANGED	school.ownership code changes (1=public, 2=private nonprofit, 3=private for-profit)

Plus one non-billable RUN_STATUS / FIXTURE_HEALTH health row per run (Store auto-test path).

Source

• Official College Scorecard: https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools.json
• Free DEMO_KEY OK for smoke (rate-limited). Prefer env DATA_GOV_API_KEY (or input dataGovApiKey) for production books.
• Fields used: id, ope6_id, ope8_id, school.name, school.operating, school.ownership, school.accreditor, school.state, school.city.
• Cadence = Scorecard refresh. Live path uses per-id lookup (portfolio-safe — not national dump billing).

Modes

sourceMode	Behavior
fixture (default)	Store auto-test: RUN_STATUS only unless emitFixtureDemoEvents=true
live	Official Scorecard API (DEMO_KEY or DATA_GOV_API_KEY)

Pricing (Model A — ADR 0010)

• scorecard-operating-status-event-delivered @ $0.02 / unique delivered event ($20 / 1k)
• apify-actor-start @ $0.00005
• Quiet / baseline / fixture health → 0 product charges

Legal

GREEN — ED College Scorecard / api.data.gov public API terms. Cite ED Scorecard + retrieval date. Institution/org data (UNITID/OPEID + name + operating + ownership + accreditor).

Coverage limits (honest)

• Scorecard school.operating / ownership only — README does not claim Title IV PEPS eligibility, cohort-default, or financial-responsibility composite scores.
• Absence from Scorecard ≠ every higher-ed determination / PEPS status.
• Not outcomes dump, not Ofsted twin, not Ofqual twin, not unpaid ed-SaaS.