Proposed Changes to IPEDS Forms 2008-09 — 2010-11 |
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The following changes are being requested from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to be effective beginning with the 2008-09 IPEDS data collection. Unless otherwise indicated, following IPEDS policy, the changes or additions would be optional in the first year (2008-09) and mandatory in subsequent years; see specific items for exceptions. Please see the January 29 Federal Register posting (Volume 73, Number 19, Page 5179) regarding a 60-day comment period on these changes at: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20081800/ Note: Congress is actively engaged in the process of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA), with the prospect of legislation being passed this year. NCES has chosen not to propose changes in IPEDS at this time in areas in which Congress may impose new reporting requirements, such as calculations of net price of attendance and graduation rates for particular categories of students. The IPEDS data collection proposed in the Federal Register notice may need to be modified at a later point in light of Congressional action on HEA. Any subsequent modifications to the IPEDS data collection would be made only with the approval of OMB after a period of public comment. (1) Collect more detailed student financial aid data (IPEDS component affected: Student Financial Aid) Institutions now report all federal student grants provided to full-time, first-time students to IPEDS rather than distinguishing between Pell grants and other grants. It is important for the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) to be able to differentiate how students at different institutions are using particular federal grant programs. Likewise, all loans are now reported together in IPEDS, regardless of source. Given the substantial expansion of private loans, OPE requests more categories of loans to those awarded by the federal government from those from outside sources. These changes to how student financial aid data are collected in IPEDS also address recommendations made by the Secretary’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education to improve financial transparency by institutions and provide more information on college costs to consumers. The data will be displayed on College Navigator to help accomplish this goal. The proposed changes in categories are detailed on the following page:
(2) Eliminate first-professional degree category (IPEDS components affected: Institutional Characteristics, Completions, 12-Month Enrollment, and Fall Enrollment) NCES has received with increasing frequency questions from the higher education community about the first-professional degree classification. Specifically, concerns were raised that due to changes in graduate education, the category of a first-professional degree has become outmoded. In addition, it has become increasingly important to be able to distinguish research-focused doctoral degrees from professionally focused doctoral degrees, such as a Doctor of Physical Education or a Doctor of Fine Arts. Based on the suggestions from the IPEDS Technical Review Panel and comments from additional members of the higher education community, the revised categories for degrees are outlined in the table below:
The new degree categories will be defined as follows: Doctor’s degree - research/scholarship - A Ph.D. or other doctor's degree that requires advanced work beyond the master’s level, including the preparation and defense of a dissertation based on original research, or the planning and execution of an original project demonstrating substantial artistic or scholarly achievement. Some examples of this type of degree may include Ed.D., D.M.A., D.B.A., D.Sc., D.A., or D.M, and others, as designated by the awarding institution. Doctor’s degree - professional practice - A doctor’s degree that is conferred upon completion of a program providing the knowledge and skills for the recognition, credential, or license required for professional practice. The degree is awarded after a period of study such that the total time to the degree, including both pre-professional and professional preparation, equals at least six full-time equivalent academic years. Some of these degrees were formerly classified as “first-professional” and may include: Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.); Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.); Law (L.L.B. or J.D.); Medicine (M.D.); Optometry (O.D.); Osteopathic Medicine (D.O); Pharmacy (Pharm.D.); Podiatry (D.P.M., Pod.D., D.P.); or, Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), and others, as designated by the awarding institution. Doctor’s degree - other - A doctor’s degree that does not meet the definition of a doctor’s degree - research/scholarship or a doctor’s degree - professional practice. Master's degree - An award that requires the successful completion of a program of study of generally one or two full-time equivalent academic years of work beyond the bachelor's degree. Some of these degrees, such as those in Theology (M.Div., M.H.L./Rav) that were formerly classified as "first-professional", may require more than two full-time equivalent academic years of work. Four components of the IPEDS collection will be affected by these changes: Institutional Characteristics, Completions, 12-Month Enrollment and the Fall Enrollment components. NCES will implement the new definitions and categories for reporting Institutional Characteristics and Fall Enrollment information with the 2008-09 data collection year. As with all changes to IPEDS, the first collection year would be optional, and the second year use of the new definition would be mandatory. For Completions and 12-Month Enrollment data, implementation of the new categories would begin in the 2009-10 data collection year (reporting on awards granted between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009) as optional, becoming mandatory the following year. For any data collections prior to the implementation date, institutions should continue to report data on first-professional degree programs under the existing definition. (3) Revise IPEDS Finance (IPEDS components affected: Finance) On January 17-18, 2007, RTI International, the contractor for the IPEDS web-based data collection system, convened a meeting of the IPEDS Technical Review Panel (TRP) in Washington, DC, to discuss future enhancements to IPEDS finance forms to increase commonality and comparability of the data collected. The panel members included 46 individuals representing institutions, national associations, state governments, the federal government, and others. The TRP members reviewed the IPEDS Finance component forms and reviewed all of the data elements currently being collected. The participants agreed that in order to increase the comparability across the IPEDS finance forms, it would be necessary to modify the forms and redefine some of the data elements being collected. The resulting data would have greater usefulness and would improve financial transparency of the institutional finance data being reported. Based on the panel members’ suggestions, NCES proposes the following changes to IPEDS Finance forms: IPEDS Finance form for institutions that use FASB:
IPEDS Finance form for institutions that use GASB:
IPEDS Finance form for for-profit institutions: No changes at this time (4) Change race/ethnicity (IPEDS components affected: Completions, 12-Month Enrollment, Fall Enrollment, Human Resources, and Graduation Rates) On October 19, 2007, the U.S. Department of Education posted to the Federal Register the “Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education.” (See the Federal Register, Volume 72, Number 202, pp. 59266-59279: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800 The proposed changes are necessary for the Department to implement the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 1997 Standards for Maintaining, Collecting and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity. IPEDS will adopt new aggregate categories for reporting R/E data in accordance with the final guidance. The guidance issued by the Department covers two separate issues: (1) the collection of R/E data by institutions and (2) the reporting of aggregate data to the Department. For collecting R/E data, institutions must use a two-question format, and the Department encourages institutions to re-survey students and staff (the two-question format is as follows: The first question is whether the respondent is Hispanic/Latino. The second question is whether the respondent is from one or more races from the following list: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White). For further details on the guidance for collecting data, please see the full Federal Register notice. For reporting aggregate data to the Department, the guidance identifies nine categories that will be used for IPEDS. ED’s final guidance requires separating the category “Asian or Pacific Islander” into two separate categories, one for “Asian” and one for “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.” Additionally, a category will be provided for reporting two or more races. This results in seven categories for reporting aggregate racial/ethnic data: Hispanics of any race, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black not-Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White not-Hispanic, and two or more races. ED’s final guidance also allows IPEDS to continue to use the two categories for reporting non-resident aliens and for reporting counts when race/ethnicity is unknown, for the reasons given below. Non-resident aliens – IPEDS has traditionally collected data on non-resident aliens separately from U.S. citizens and resident aliens (no race data will be available for non-resident aliens); and Race/ethnicity unknown – this category has been used in IPEDS since 1990 to provide a mechanism for reporting U.S. citizens and resident aliens who do not designate a racial/ethnic category. The current and new race/ethnicity categories for reporting data to IPEDS are outlined on the following page:
Educational institutions will be required to implement this guidance in order to report data for the 2010–2011 school year. Under the guidance, although not required to do so, educational institutions already collecting individual-level data in the manner specified by the notice are encouraged to immediately begin reporting aggregate data to the Department. However, because the 2007-08 IPEDS data collection year is already underway, the new R/E reporting categories will not be available for reporting in IPEDS until the 2008-09 collection year, which begins in Fall 2008. The IPEDS Technical Review Panel (TRP) discussed the implementation of changes to race/ethnicity reporting in IPEDS in November 2006 after the Department issued preliminary guidance on August 6, 2006. Based on suggestions from that meeting of the TRP, changes to reporting race/ethnicity in IPEDS will be fully implemented as outlined below.
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