A Nation at Risk: A report published by the U.S. Department of Education in 1983 highlighting deficiencies in knowledge of the nation’s students and population as a whole in areas such as literacy, mathematics, geography, and basic science.

Academic library: An academic library is the library for a degree-granting institution of higher education. It provides all of the following: (1) an organized collection of printed or other materials or a combination thereof; (2) a staff trained to provide and interpret such materials; (3) an established schedule in which services of the staff are available; and (4) the physical facilities necessary to support such a collection, staff, and schedule.

Academic support: This category of college expenditures includes expenditures for support services that are an integral part of the institution’s primary missions of instruction, research, or public service. Includes expenditures for libraries, galleries, audio/visual services, academic computing support, ancillary support, academic administration, personnel development, and course and curriculum development.

Achievement levels: Achievement levels, which are set through a National Assessment Governing Board process, define what students should know and be able to do at different levels of performance. In the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the achievement levels are Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. The definitions of these levels, which apply across all grades and subject areas, are as follows:

• Basic: This level denotes partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade.

• Proficient: This level represents solid academic performance for each grade assessed. Students reaching this level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject-matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real-world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to the subject matter.

• Advanced: This level signifies superior performance.

ACT Assessment: An examination administered by ACT, Inc. (formerly the American College Testing Program). The ACT Assessment® is designed to assess high school students’ general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work. The ACT differs from the SAT in that it assesses students’ knowledge in the curricular areas of English, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning.

Activities for supervision: A form of care arrangement that includes extracurricular activities such as sports, arts, and clubs that are not associated with center- or school-based arrangements. Parents may use such activities to provide children with adult supervision (nonparental care). Similar activities may also be undertaken because of children’s personal interest and enjoyment and not for the purpose of adult supervision (adapted from NCES 2004-008, page 7, 3, § 6–7).

Adult education: Adult education includes enrollment in a formal course of any length from 1 day to a semester or longer in any of seven types of activities: English as a Second Language (ESL); Adult Basic Education (ABE), General Educational Development (GED) preparation classes, and adult high school programs; college or university degree programs; vocational or technical diploma programs; apprenticeship programs; work-related courses (related to a job or career other than postsecondary credential programs or apprenticeship programs, whether or not respondents had a job when they took the courses); and personal interest courses (various types of educational activities that have an instructor and are not included in the other categories). For the purposes of The Condition of Education, adult education for work-related reasons includes apprenticeships, formal work-related courses, college or university degree or certificate programs for work-related reasons, and vocational/technical diploma programs for work-related reasons. It excludes informal learning (e.g., brown bag demonstrations, conferences, or self-paced study). The adult population includes civilian, noninstitutionalized individuals, age 16 and above, who are not enrolled in elementary or secondary school.

Advanced degree: Any formal degree attained after the bachelor’s degree. Advanced degrees include master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, and first-professional degrees.

Advanced Placement: The Advanced Placement (AP) program is an assessment program owned and conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The program includes a demanding academic course of study in college-level subjects such as physics, biology, calculus, and foreign languages, among others. A student who performs above a specified level on the assessment may be awarded college credit for certain courses upon entry to the institution.

Afterschool programs: Center- or school-based programs regularly scheduled at least once each month during afterschool hours.

Allocated time: Allocated time refers to the total number of hours per year a student is required to attend school. Allocated time can then be divided into instructional and noninstructional time. (See also instructional time and noninstructional time.)

Alternative schools: A public elementary/secondary school that (1) addresses needs of students that typically cannot be met in a regular school, (2) provides nontraditional education, (3) serves as an adjunct to a regular school, or (4) falls outside the categories of regular, special education, or vocational education. Some examples of alternative schools are schools for potential dropouts; residential treatment centers for substance abuse (if they provide elementary or secondary education); schools for chronic truants; and schools for students with behavioral problems. About 7 percent of schools in the Common Core of Data (CCD) files are alternative schools.

Appropriations (federal funds): Budget authority provided through the congressional appropriation process that permits federal agencies to incur obligations and to make payments.

Appropriations (institutional revenues): An amount (other than a grant or contract) received from or made available to an institution through an act of a legislative body.

Assistantship: An assistantship is a form of institutional aid in which the student receives aid in exchange for teaching, research, or other services. This form of aid is most commonly used for graduate students, but it is sometimes available to undergraduates.

Associate’s degree: A degree granted for the successful completion of a subbaccalaureate program of studies, usually requiring at least 2 years (or the equivalent) of full-time college-level study.

At-risk: Being “at-risk” means having one or more family background or other factors that have been found to predict a high rate of school failure at some time in the future. This “failure” generally refers to dropping out of high school before graduating but also can mean being retained within a grade from one year to the next. The risk factors include having a mother whose education is less than high school, living in a single-parent family, receiving welfare assistance, and living in a household where the primary language spoken is other than English.

Auxiliary enterprises: This category includes those essentially self-supporting operations that exist to furnish a service to students, faculty, or staff and that charge a fee that is directly related to, although not necessarily equal to, the cost of the service. Examples are residence halls, food services, college stores, and intercollegiate athletics.

Average daily attendance (ADA): The aggregate attendance of students in a school during a reporting period (normally a school year) divided by the number of days that school is in session during this period. Only days on which the students are under the guidance and direction of teachers should be considered days that school is in session.