/ipeds/institutions

POST /api/ipeds/institutions

Price: 1 credit

Get one US college or university from the IPEDS directory by its UNITID, with its name, campus address and coordinates, ownership and level, Carnegie classifications across every vintage, Title IV participation, federal identifiers and the admissions, aid and net-price links

How to use it

Resolve one institution by its IPEDS UNITID — the same number College Scorecard returns as `id`, so a Scorecard result can be looked up here directly. Scorecard ids with eight digits are synthetic branch ids and resolve to nothing here. `year` selects the survey year, not a filter on the record: a directory record exists per year, and an institution that closed before the year you asked for is reported as not found rather than as a closed institution, so ask for a year it was open. Coded IPEDS values arrive as their official English labels rather than as numbers; a value the institution did not report is absent rather than zero. `successor_id` is set when the institution was merged into another UNITID.

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 — Survey year the directory record is read for (default: 2024; min: 1980; max: 2100)

Response

• @type string (default: "IpedsInstitution")
• id string required
• year integer nullable
• name string nullable
• alternative_names array (default: [])
• address string nullable
• city string nullable
• state string nullable
• zip_code string nullable
• county string nullable
• county_fips string nullable
• state_fips string nullable
• latitude number nullable
• longitude number nullable
• region string nullable
• locale string nullable
• cbsa_code string nullable
• cbsa_type string nullable
• csa_code string nullable
• necta_code string nullable
• congress_district_code string nullable
• phone string nullable
• web_url string nullable
• application_url string nullable
• financial_aid_url string nullable
• net_price_calculator_url string nullable
• veterans_services_url string nullable
• disability_services_url string nullable
• athletics_url string nullable
• chief_administrator string nullable
• chief_administrator_title string nullable
• sector string nullable
• ownership string nullable
• level string nullable
• category string nullable
• size_category string nullable
• highest_degree string nullable
• highest_award_level string nullable
• is_degree_granting boolean nullable
• is_hbcu boolean nullable
• is_tribal_college boolean nullable
• is_land_grant boolean nullable
• has_hospital boolean nullable
• grants_medical_degree boolean nullable
• offers_undergraduate boolean nullable
• offers_graduate boolean nullable
• is_primarily_postsecondary boolean nullable
• is_open_to_public boolean nullable
• is_currently_active boolean nullable
• status string nullable
• title_iv_status string nullable
• postsecondary_status string nullable
• postsecondary_title_iv_status string nullable
• reporting_method string nullable
• is_part_of_system boolean nullable
• system_name string nullable
• comparison_group_code string nullable
• has_custom_comparison_group boolean nullable
• closed_date string nullable
• deleted_year integer nullable
• successor_id string nullable
• opeid string nullable
• ein string nullable
• duns string nullable
• uei string nullable
• carnegie object nullable
  • @type string (default: "IpedsCarnegieClassification")
  • basic_2000 string nullable
  • basic_2010 string nullable
  • basic_2015 string nullable
  • basic_2018 string nullable
  • basic_2021 string nullable
  • basic_2025 string nullable
  • undergraduate_profile_2010 string nullable
  • undergraduate_profile_2015 string nullable
  • undergraduate_profile_2018 string nullable
  • undergraduate_profile_2021 string nullable
  • undergraduate_profile_2025 string nullable
  • undergraduate_instructional_program_2010 string nullable
  • undergraduate_instructional_program_2015 string nullable
  • undergraduate_instructional_program_2018 string nullable
  • undergraduate_instructional_program_2021 string nullable
  • graduate_instructional_program_2010 string nullable
  • graduate_instructional_program_2015 string nullable
  • graduate_instructional_program_2018 string nullable
  • graduate_instructional_program_2021 string nullable
  • graduate_instructional_program_2025 string nullable
  • enrollment_profile_2010 string nullable
  • enrollment_profile_2015 string nullable
  • enrollment_profile_2018 string nullable
  • enrollment_profile_2021 string nullable
  • size_and_setting_2010 string nullable
  • size_and_setting_2015 string nullable
  • size_and_setting_2018 string nullable
  • size_and_setting_2021 string nullable
  • institution_size_2025 string nullable
  • award_level_focus_2025 string nullable
  • research_activity_2025 string nullable
  • student_access_and_earnings_2025 string nullable

Errors

• 422 — The request body did not validate Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit 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 directory record for that UNITID in that survey year 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 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 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 Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response 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.