Beyond MaybeWhere every number comes from
Beyond Maybe doesn't generate facts, it organizes them. These are the sources, what each provides, how often they update, and where they fall short.
Primary sources
| Source | What it provides | Updates | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| College Scorecard U.S. Department of Education | Costs, average net price, graduation and retention rates, earnings, admissions data for accredited US institutions. Powers Beyond Maybe's live school search. | Federal releases, roughly annually; reporting years shown lag current prices by 1–2 years. | Averages, not personal figures; some fields suppressed for small schools; program-level detail limited. |
| O*NET 31.0 U.S. Department of Labor | Career tasks, skills, knowledge, education levels, and outlook for nearly 1,000 occupations, the basis of career matching. | Rolling occupation updates; database versioned (we use 31.0 and show each career's last-updated date). | Some occupations have partial coverage; we show a coverage level per career and soften claims accordingly. |
| O*NET–CIP Crosswalk | The official mapping from careers to programs of study (CIP codes), how a career connects to majors. | With O*NET/CIP releases (CIP 2020 current). | Not every occupation maps to instructional programs; unmapped careers say so instead of guessing. |
| IPEDS National Center for Education Statistics | Institutional characteristics and program completions, the backbone of the national program-matching system now in development. | Annual survey cycles. | Not yet wired into personalized matching; we say so on the methodology page. |
| Federal Student Aid | FAFSA rules, aid types, and Pell Grant amounts (up to $7,395 for the 2026–27 award year). | Annually by award year. | State and institutional aid rules vary beyond federal guidance. |
| Official institution pages | Published tuition, deadlines, program details, and campus life facts for verified starter-set schools, with verification dates shown. | Checked at the verification date shown on each school. | Schools change prices and deadlines; always confirm directly before acting. |
Beyond Maybe's own calculations
Anything we compute, estimated net costs, four-year projections, travel estimates, match components, is labeled as a calculated estimate, explains its assumptions, and never overrides an official figure. Where inputs are missing, we show “not published” or “unknown” rather than filling gaps.
Found a number that doesn't match its source? Email hello@beyondmaybe.org, corrections are reviewed against the primary source and fixed.
Last reviewed September 8, 2026 by the Beyond Maybe team. Spot an error? Email hello@beyondmaybe.org and we’ll correct it.