-36%
Undergraduate enrollment
Undergraduate enrollment at Columbia College fell 35% between 2021 and 2024 (234 → 151).
Virginia · Private for-profit · Predominantly certificates
Columbia College
Vienna, Virginia. 239 undergraduate students. 18 programs in the federal Field-of-Study dataset.
ANOMALY ENGINE · NOTABLE SIGNALS
What the data flags at Columbia College
Short-arc shifts (recent 3-year window), peer outliers, earnings trend breaks, completion drops, enrollment cliffs, and debt-to-earnings warnings — surfaced deterministically from the federal record. Multi-decade shifts are reported separately in the Long Arc section, since 25-year tuition drift isn't really an anomaly.
+14%
First-year retention
First-year retention at Columbia College rose 14% between 2021 and 2024 (75.2% → 85.5%).
+33%
Median federal debt at exit
Median federal debt at exit at Columbia College rose 33% between 2017 and 2020 ($6.0k → $7.9k).
SECTION 01 · OUTCOMES SNAPSHOT
The numbers, vs. Virginia
Each tile compares this institution to the Virginia median for the same metric. Sub-line shows the comparison value, not an interpretation. Sparklines trace the federally available history.
$22,160-7% · 6→10y
Virginia median $44,813$23,950
Treasury earnings · 6y post-entry72.3%
Virginia median 50.7%$6,035+39% · '11→'20
At program completion239-36% · '09→'24
latest IPEDS74.3%+22% · '09→'24
first-time, full-time—
latest cohort—
annualSECTION 02 · EARNINGS HORIZONS
How earnings spread, 4 to 10 years after entry
Treasury tax-record earnings for federally aided students who first enrolled at this institution. Each point is a horizon from the most-recent vintage. Single median per horizon (no p25/p75 publishing).
Earnings widen with time post-entry. Selection: federal-aid recipients only — not all graduates.Methodology →
SECTION 03 · DEBT-TO-EARNINGS
What loans cost relative to earnings
Annual debt service as a share of median earnings 10 years after entry, computed under federal Direct loan terms (10-year fixed at 6%). The 8% line is the gainful-employment threshold from federal regulation; above 12% has historically been considered “failing” under prior rule cycles.
Institution-wide
3.6%Median federal debt $6,035 amortized over 10 years vs. median earnings $22,160 (10y after entry).
SECTION 04 · LONG ARC
Ten-plus year arc
Federally available history. Coverage varies by metric — IPEDS publishes some series only after 2009 and others only before.
Undergraduate enrollment.
Median federal student debt at exit.
+22%
Columbia College · retention rose
70.3% → 85.5%
-36%
Columbia College · undergrad enrollment fell
237 → 151
+39%
Columbia College · median debt rose
$5,700 → $7,940
+636%
Columbia College · pell share rose
2.3% → 34.1%
SECTION 05 · PROGRAMS
Ranked by 5-year earnings
Each row is one (CIP × credential) program reported by the institution in College Scorecard's Field-of-Study data. Cohort floor is 30 students; below this, federal data is suppressed.
SECTION 06 · BY CIP FAMILY
1 programs with earnings, grouped
Programs are grouped by 2-digit CIP family. Programs without reported earnings are hidden to keep the list focused.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE · CIP 23
FINANCIAL OUTCOME · ILLUSTRATION
Estimate the financial outcome at Columbia College
Pick a program. Cost from Scorecard net price by family income; earnings from Treasury 5-year-post-completion median, projected forward with a Mincer age-earnings curve. The selection-bias toggle applies the Dale-Krueger shrinkage. Outcomes illustration, not a forecast — see methodology.
Shrinks the earnings premium toward the matched-applicant mean. STEM <15%, business ~40%, arts & education ~60%.
NET PRESENT VALUE
-$334,980
Over 40 years, discounted 5.0%
BREAKEVEN
—
Doesn’t reach breakeven within the horizon
- Cost per year
- $12,900
- HS-only baseline · VA
- $39,800
- Years to complete
- 1
- CIP family
- 23
Outcomes illustration · not a forecast. Projects observed Scorecard earnings forward with a Mincer age-earnings curve under your assumptions. See methodology for the math.
SECTION 07 · SIMILAR INSTITUTIONS
Same sector and degree mix in Virginia
Picked by Carnegie sector × predominant credential level. These are not rankings — just nearest-neighbour surfaces for comparison.
CAUSAL DISCIPLINE
“Columbia College graduates earn $X” — not “Columbia College makes you earn $X”
Median earnings describe what cohorts earned. They do not describe what attending Columbia College caused. Selection effects (who admits, who enrolls, who completes) are real. We publish federal data with strict descriptive phrasing — and link the methodology where you can read about the limitations directly.