# /ipeds/institutions/enrollment

`POST /api/ipeds/institutions/enrollment`

Price: 5 credits

Get the fall enrolment census of one US college or university — head counts broken down by race, sex, full- or part-time attendance, class level and degree-seeking status, together with the first-year retention rates and the student-faculty ratio

## How to use it

Fall head counts for one UNITID at one level of study. `enrollment` is a cross-tabulation rather than a list of groups: every combination of the reported dimensions is its own line and each dimension also carries a 'Total' line, so adding lines up double-counts — filter to the single combination you want and read its `student_count`. The categories are the federal reporting ones, which is why 'Nonresident alien' appears in place of a race for international students. Retention and the student-faculty ratio describe the whole institution rather than the level you asked for, and they start later than the enrolment census: retention from 2003, the ratio from 2009.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `institution` (string, required) — IPEDS UNITID of the institution (examples: "166683", "104151", "166027"; minLength: 1)
- `year` (integer) — Fall the enrolment census was taken in (default: 2024; min: 1986; max: 2100)
- `level` (string) — Level of study the enrolment breakdown covers (default: "undergraduate"; one of: "undergraduate", "graduate")

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "IpedsEnrollment")
- `id` (string, required)
- `institution_id` (string, required)
- `year` (integer, nullable)
- `level_of_study` (string, nullable)
- `student_faculty_ratio` (integer, nullable)
- `enrollment` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "IpedsEnrollmentLine")
  - `race` (string, nullable)
  - `sex` (string, nullable)
  - `attendance` (string, nullable)
  - `class_level` (string, nullable)
  - `degree_seeking` (string, nullable)
  - `student_count` (integer, nullable)
- `retention` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "IpedsRetentionLine")
  - `attendance` (string, nullable)
  - `retention_rate` (number, nullable)
  - `previous_cohort_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `previous_cohort_adjusted_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `previous_cohort_inclusions_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `previous_cohort_exclusions_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `returning_student_count` (integer, nullable)

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

The request body did not validate

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

No IPEDS enrolment record for that UNITID in that fall

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.