The data draw a portrait of a higher-education sector that is under pressure to enroll more students and to ensure that a diverse number of them have equal chances to improve their lives.

Some college leaders, rather than fearing the aspirations of those under them, purposefully go about grooming new presidents.

A college degree falls short of putting women on equal economic footing with men, and they have the student-loan burden to prove it.

Less than 1 percent of the R&D money spent by universities goes to the humanities. The institutions that spend the most want their projects to have an impact.

New Jersey’s young people may be born to run, but their mass departure to attend college elsewhere is making leaders nervous about the state’s future.

The value of the endowments of the 15 wealthiest institutions in Massachusetts exceeded $70 billion, about as much as the total national wealth of Lithuania.

Over 11 years, the share of revenue from tuition and fees that went back to students in tuition discounts grew by nearly 10 percentage points.

The four doctoral institutions with the highest numbers of international students in 2016-17 were all private nonprofit institutions

Institutions with significant online enrollments stood out in their categories for their exceptionally high student counts.

Of the 20 fastest-growing public doctoral institutions, 12 were in the Southwest or Southeast.

The enrollment of women in college fell by nearly 100,000 since 2010, while male enrollment grew by more than 12,000.

Most of the more than $250 billion in student aid came from the federal government, and a good share of that came in the form of loans.

As usual, China and India sent by far the most students, but Brazil, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia also stood out in their regions.

The six colleges on the list with the highest percentages of African-Americans were for-profit institutions or two-year private nonprofit institutions.

Hispanic and American Indian students were less likely to attend four-year private nonprofit colleges than were students of other racial and ethnic groups.

In the fall of 2016, there were nearly 30 percent more women than men enrolled in college. In 1986, there were 14 percent more.

Britain, Italy, and Spain were the top choices in 2015-16. Outside Europe, the most-popular destinations were China, Australia, and Costa Rica.

Only three private nonprofit institutions and no public or for-profit institutions had four-year graduation rates exceeding 90 percent.

Women accumulated more debt than men at every level of higher education, but the gender gap was overshadowed by racial disparities.

Colleges and universities devoted nearly half as much support to research and development as did the federal government.

Even companies near the top of the list for total enrollment at their colleges in the fall of 2016 have not necessarily fared well since then.

Doctorate recipients in the humanities and arts were more likely than recipients in other fields to have secured work in academe.

Faculty members who worked at rural institutions were the least likely to be tenured or on the tenure track.

Women were nearly twice as likely as men to have served as provost just before moving into a presidential position.

Full professors got the lowest percentage raises in all sectors in 2017-18, but their average pay increases still outpaced inflation.

Among the colleges that drew many students from other states were elite private institutions and tribal colleges.

The number of massive open online courses offered worldwide grew by more than 2,500 in the past academic year.

Nearly 20 percent of recent high-school graduates left their own states to study at colleges in other states. Some states gained many more students than they lost.

If college success is measured in terms of financial rewards, women are trailing men considerably.

The top 40 institutions spent more than half of what all institutions spent on research and development with support from the National Science Foundation.

Two-year for-profit institutions devoted nearly 40 percent of their outlays to managerial pay, the most among sectors.

Several of the colleges with low scores on the test have already closed.

Four-year private nonprofit institutions spent nearly four times as much per full-time-equivalent student in the 2016 fiscal year as four-year for-profit institutions did.

About 78 percent of new managers hired in the fall of 2016 were non-Hispanic whites, signaling a slight increase in diversity.

Only nine of the 50 highest-paid chief executives of private nonprofit colleges were women, with just two female leaders breaking into the top 10.

Of the 20 colleges that produced at least three first-time presidents or chancellors since July 2012, seven had enrollments of fewer than 10,000 students.

Twelve presidents or chancellors of public universities or systems had total compensation of $1 million or more in the 2017 fiscal year.

Women earned, on average, less than 90 percent of what men did in five of the eight highest Carnegie classifications of colleges.

Many of the public doctoral institutions that paid their full professors the most in 2016-17 were in cities well known for their high costs of living.

Women had the lowest overall average salaries in comparison with men at doctoral universities with the highest research activity.