National comparative tools Page 1
National comparative tools – A quick compilation
Prepared by Lou McClelland, CU-Boulder Planning, Budget, and Analysis
November 2005
Overview
Data and tools for comparing colleges and universities are listed in five groups:
1. Required, universal, annual submissions to the federal government
2. Other high-participation annual collections
3. Third party compilations
4. Regular collections without universal participation
5. AAUDE, the AAU Data Exchange.
Notes on the use of comparative tools follow the listings.
Required, universal, annual submissions to the federal government
IPEDS
U.S. Department of Education (DOE) National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/ has annual collections on:
Students – By gender and citizenship/racial/ethnic group
o Degrees granted by discipline and level
o Fall enrollment by level, entering vs. continuing, degree-seeking or not, full or part-time
o Freshman retention and graduation rates, including rates for intercollegiate athletes
o Financial aid to entering freshmen: Number of recipients and average amount of federal, state, and institutional grant aid
Employees – By medical/not, full or part-time, tenure status, and “functional group.” With some salary information, particularly for faculty
Miscellaneous institutional characteristics: Public or private, tuition rates, semesters or quarters, accrediting agency, etc.
Finance: Revenues, expenses, assets, plant-property-equipment, scholarships and fellowships. Reports for public institutions follow GASB 34/35 standards and are to match the institution's audited General Purpose Financial Statement (GPFS).
Other agencies
Most data are available through WebCASPAR at http://caspar.nsf.gov/
National Science Foundation-National Institutes of Health (NSF-NIH) Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering, also known as the graduate student survey (GSS). http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvygradpostdoc/
o Annual survey at the academic department level
o Number and characteristics of enrolled students and their financial support
o Numbers of postdoctoral appointees and other non-faculty research personnel who hold doctorates.
NSF surveys covering
o Federal funds for R&D and for supply and expense support to universities, college, and nonprofits
o R&D expenditures at universities and colleges
o http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvyrdexpenditures/
Survey of earned doctorates. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/
Continuous survey of degree recipients individually about program of study, educational history, and plans
Sponsored by NSF and several other federal agencies
See the introductory page of WebCASPAR, NSF’s Integrated Science and Engineering Resources Data System, following this document. WebCASPAR covers NSF and much IPEDS data.
Other high-participation regular collections
CUPA – College and University Personnel Association: Compensation of administrative staff, annual. http://www.cupahr.org/surveys/salarysurveysinfo.html
AAUP – American Association of University Professors: Compensation of faculty, annual; information similar to that reported to IPEDS. http://www.aaup.org/research/Index.htm
ARL - Association of Research Libraries: Collections, personnel, services, and expenditures of research libraries, annual. http://www.arl.org/arl/programs.html#stats
NACUBO – National Association of College and University Business Officers: Endowments. http://www.nacubo.org/x7.xml
“Common Dataset” of information for undergraduate college guides, on admissions, tuition and costs, class size, and more. Annual. Used by U.S. News, Peterson’s, etc. http://www.commondataset.org/
CGS - Council of Graduate Schools: Graduate enrollment and programs. Annual. http://www.cgsnet.org/index.htm
AUTM - Association of University Technology Managers: Licensing Activities. Annual. http://www.autm.net/index.cfm
NRC – National Research Council: Doctoral program characteristics. Every 7-10 years. http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/index.html
Third party compilations used in comparative analyses
Examples
Citations, from ISI, The Institute for Scientific Information. http://www.isinet.com/
Awards and honors, from granting organizations such as the national academies
Test taker characteristics and enrollment outcomes, from ACT, SAT, GRE, and others
Cost of living indices, high school graduate numbers and characteristics, US census data, etc.
Regular collections without universal participation
Examples
The National Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity (“Delaware study”) http://www.udel.edu/IR/cost/
Student surveys by CIRP, the Cooperative Institutional Research Program of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/cirp.html
APPA – Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers: Facilities space, costs, uses. Annual, new. http://www.appa.org/Research/fcds.cfm
SCUP - Society for College and University Planning: Facilities inventory. Annual, new. http://www.scup.org/knowledge/cfi/
EDUCAUSE: Information technology practices. http://www.educause.edu/
Campus Computing Project: Annual survey. http://www.campuscomputing.net/
AAUDE, the AAU Data Exchange
Integrated access to data from federal and many other regular collections
AAUDE-only collections on faculty salaries by discipline, tuition by college or discipline, some other topics
AAUDE optional questions on NSSE, the National Survey of Student Engagement (CU-Boulder coordinates this exchange)
Development of new collections and compilations. Examples: Graduate support detail; faculty surveys, citation counts
Ad hoc e-mail query system with storage of compiled results. Example: Katrina enrollments
Annual meetings, consultation, and research on appropriate use and comparability of data shared among universities
Notes on the use of comparative tools
Supplying data to national organizations can take considerable institutional time and effort.
Retrieving data from national organizations can also take considerable time and effort, plus in some cases direct costs for purchase or user fees
Appropriate use of comparative data requires:
o Deep understanding of how the data were generated at the home institution, of how processes, practices, and reporting decisions at other institutions may vary, and of how those variances will affect the comparisons.
§ Example: Michigan and several other research universities report no staff with “research” functions to IPEDS. Their research staff are reported in other categories.
o Multi-year experience. It takes several years for a new data source to gain credibility, a critical mass of users, and sufficient documentation on issues threatening comparability. In addition, understanding your own data over time is an important step in understanding how you compare to others.
Data availability is always an issue. Even with the required federal collections, some institutions will be excluded.
o Example: Rutgers and Penn State reported no state appropriation revenue to IPEDS because they were using the FASB rather than the GASB formats.
Comparative data can help answer policy questions but can also help deepen understanding of how institutions and their activities differ and relate to one another.
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