Terms of Service | College Index

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using College Index (“the Service”), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

2. Description of Service

College Index provides data-driven college rankings, school profiles, comparison tools, and personalized recommendations based on publicly available federal and third-party data. The Service is provided “as is” for informational purposes and is not a substitute for professional academic counseling.

3. User Accounts

To access certain features (favorites, personalized recommendations, notifications), you must create an account. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity under your account.

You agree to provide accurate information when creating your account and to update it if it changes.

4. Information Sharing

We may share your personal information with selected outside companies — such as schools, scholarship providers, and complementary service partners — that assist us in providing you with relevant Services. Such sharing occurs in accordance with the contact preferences you set when you create your profile, when you express interest in content displayed on our Site, or when you provide an affirmative authorization (for example, by clicking a button indicating interest in a school or partner offering).

We also share your information with third-party processors who act on our behalf (such as database hosting, email delivery, and analytics providers). These processors are bound by contract to protect your data and may only process it for the purposes we specify.

We may share aggregated or de-identified information (which cannot reasonably be used to identify you) with others for research, analytics, or service-improvement purposes. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

Use automated scripts, bots, or scrapers to access the Service at scale without prior written permission.
Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our systems, accounts, or data.
Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable law.
Interfere with or disrupt the Service or its infrastructure.
Misrepresent your identity or affiliation when creating an account.

6. Data and Rankings

Our rankings are derived from publicly available data sources and computed using documented methodologies. While we strive for accuracy, we do not guarantee that any data point, score, or ranking is error-free or complete.

Rankings are updated weekly and may change as new data becomes available. Past rankings are preserved in snapshots for transparency.

7. Intellectual Property

The College Index name, logo, ranking methodologies, website design, and original content are the property of College Index. The underlying public data used to compute rankings remains in the public domain. You may cite or reference our rankings with attribution.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components. College Index is an informational tool and should not be the sole basis for any educational or financial decision.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, College Index and its operators shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service, including decisions made based on rankings or data presented on the site.

10. Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms. You may delete your account at any time by contacting us.

11. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

12. Contact

Questions about these terms? Contact us at hello@collegeindex.co.