Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Research Articles

Repaying a Debt? The Performance of Morrill Act University Beneficiaries as Measured by Native Enrollment and Graduation Rates

Repaying a Debt?The Performance of Morrill Act University Beneficiaries as Measured by Native Enrollment and Graduation Rates Donna Feir (bio) and Maggie E. C. Jones (bio) the 1862 morrill act transferred "public" lands to several states and territories for the benefit of establishing colleges. The act is widely viewed as a watershed event in the development of the United States' postsecondary system (Goldin and Katz 2008; Key 1996). Recent quasi-experimental work by economists Isaac Ehrlich, Adam Cook, and Yong Yin (2018) suggests that the Morrill Act produced sizable educational and economic returns that were pivotal in the development of the U.S. economy. Absent from discussions of the Morrill Act are connections to Indigenous dispossession. The Land-Grab Universities (LGU) project (Lee and Ahtone 2020) directly connects the seizure and transfer of Indigenous land to the founding of a university system that has created economic returns to generations of Americans. While all universities benefit directly from the Indigenous lands on which their campuses are located, the university beneficiaries of the Morrill Act benefit in a very direct, traceable, and historically proximate fashion. This link makes the average economic marginalization and underrepresentation of Native students in the university system all the more problematic. Many notions of justice imply that universities whose endowments were seeded by Morrill Act lands have a greater obligation to current generations of Indigenous students whose ancestors were effectively deprived of their ability to provide opportunities for their children through the taking of their lands without fair compensation.1 We link the LGU database to the university-level data in the 2017–18 Integrated Post-secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) database to explore whether land-grant universities have fulfilled this obligation. Do the universities that received endowments from Morrill Act lands benefit American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students today in a proportionate fashion to their returns on Indigenous lands? [End Page 129] The IPEDS Data and Linkage to the Land-Grab Universities Database IPEDS is the key dataset on postsecondary institutions from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). All universities are required to provide data, including enrollments and graduation rates, to the NCES, which then compiles information consistently across postsecondary institutions. We link the IPEDS data to the data created by Lee and Ahtone using the name of the university that benefited from Morrill Act lands. Specifically, we link the IPEDS data to the Universities.csv in the LGU database using the variable UNITID and university name. When universities have multiple campuses, we use the primary campus listed in the "city" variable in the LGU database. While our method is imperfect in attaching funds raised from the Morrill Act for university endowments to only one campus, the choice to use the primary campus is the most methodologically straightforward. We restrict attention to institutions covered by IPEDS Carnegie classifications 15, 16, 21, and 22, that is, research-intensive institutions that offer a wide range of baccalaureate programs and enroll graduate doctoral and master's degree students across a range of programs and disciplines. The chosen classifications cover all Morrill Act beneficiaries. This allows us to focus on universities that are similar to Morrill universities and ensures that any differences we observe between Morrill universities and other universities are not due to differences in university missions or sorts of degrees delivered. The specific metrics we use from the IPEDS data are (1) total, undergraduate, and graduate enrollment rates of AIAN students (i.e., the proportion of all students enrolled who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native); (2) the proportion of graduates who are AIAN who complete their program within 150 percent of normal time (150 percent graduation rate); (3) the 150 percent graduation rate of AIAN students; and (4) the difference between the 150 percent graduation rate of white students and that of AIAN students. Do Morrill Act Beneficiaries Enroll and Graduate a Greater Percentage of Indigenous Students as a Proportion of Their Student Base? Indigenous students are generally underrepresented in the university system (Postsecondary National Policy Institute 2019). At all universities, only around 0.3 percent of fall enrollments in 2017–18 were identified as AIAN, while the AIAN population accounted for close to...

Disparities in Unmet Student Financial Need at Public Community Colleges

ABSTRACT Differences in funding mixtures across the United States create widely variant levels of unmet need for students. This research examines gaps of unmet need between 2003–4 and 2013–14, particularly considering the presence of any local funding provisions and Pell Grant funding changes. These findings are also considered across state, community college type by both size and setting. Data were collected from the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Results show that the change in the cost of attendance and the average amount of financial aid to students over the decade this study examines has been steady. Increase in Pell Grant aid have helped ameliorate some of the differences in unmet need across states. However, national averages mask stark differences in unmet need across the subsections listed above. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

COVID-19 observations and accompanying dataset of non-pharmaceutical interventions across U.S. universities, March 2020.

BackgroundThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) guidance for specific institutional audiences to limit community spread. Audiences include: business, clinical, public health, education, community, and state/local government. The swift, severe, and global nature of COVID-19 offers an opportunity to systematically obtain a national view of how larger institutions of higher education adopted NPI guidance at the onset of the pandemic.MethodAn original database of COVID-19-related university NPI policy changes was compiled. Survey team members manually combed university websites and official statements capturing implementation decisions and dates for five NPI variables from 575 U.S. universities, across 50 states and the District of Columbia, during March of 2020. The universities included in this study were selected from the Department of Education Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which provides a set of university explanatory variables. Using IPEDS as the basis for the organizational data allows consistent mapping to event-time and institutional characteristic variables including public health announcements, geospatial, census, and political affiliation.ResultsThe dataset enables event-time analysis and offers a variety of variables to support institutional level study and identification of underlying biases like educational attainment. A descriptive analysis of the dataset reveals that there was substantial heterogeneity in the decisions that were made and the timing of these decisions as they temporally related to key state, national, and global emergency announcements. The WHO pandemic declaration coincided with the largest number of university decisions to implement NPIs.ConclusionThis study provides descriptive observations and produced an original dataset that will be useful for future research focused on drivers and trends of COVID-19 NPIs for U.S. Universities. This preliminary analysis suggests COVID-19 university decisions appeared to be made largely at the university level, leading to major variations in the nature and timing of the responses both between and within states, which requires further study.

The correlation between undergraduate student diversity and the representation of women of color faculty in engineering

AbstractBackgroundDespite the critical role of faculty diversity in the persistence and academic experiences of undergraduate students as well as in the development of engineering innovations, women of color (WoC) faculty are still underrepresented in engineering programs across the United States.Purpose/HypothesisThis study identifies whether the demographic composition of undergraduate engineering students is correlated with the representation of WoC faculty. It also highlights the institutional‐ and departmental‐level factors that contribute to the race–gender diversification of the engineering professoriate.Design/MethodInformed by organizational demography as the theoretical framework, the methods include linear and logit regression analyses. Data come from the American Society for Engineering Education, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, and the American Community Survey, and include engineering departmental‐level observations across 345 institutions over 12 years.ResultsEngineering departments that award more bachelor's degrees to women African American/Black undergraduate students are more likely to employ relatively more African American/Black women faculty. This positive relationship is also found among Asian Americans and Hispanics/Latinas.ConclusionsResearch findings demonstrate the relationship between engineering undergraduate composition, as well as other departmental‐ and institutional‐level factors, and the prevalence of WoC faculty. The findings highlight important areas for stakeholders and academic administrators to consider when developing strategies and programs to diversify the composition of engineering faculty.

How Do Affirmative Action Bans Affect the Racial Composition of Postsecondary Students in Public Institutions?

This study investigates the associations between statewide affirmative action bans and the racial composition of undergraduate students at public 4-year colleges and universities in five states, that is, Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma. I use the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System data from 1999 to 2017, and find that despite having few selective postsecondary institutions, public four-year institutions in these five states experienced an average decline of 0.42 percentage points in the enrollment of underrepresented racial-ethnic minority students following bans on affirmative action. Further, the bans also decreased the enrollment of underrepresented racial-ethnic minority students at four state public flagship universities.

More than STEM: spillovers from higher education institution infrastructure investments in the arts

Higher education institutions (HEIs) represent an enormous density of investment and resources, concentrating infrastructure spending and creating high human capital citizens and knowledge spillovers increasingly seen as critical to advancing regional quality of life. While HEIs’ prominent role in promoting regional economic growth, innovation, and attractiveness receives considerable research attention, most of that attention is paid to aspects of HEIs that are directly related to STEM activity. There are various theories that suggest spillovers from non-STEM activity at HEIs as well, specifically in the arts. This study examines whether spillovers occur for HEIs’ large capital investments in the arts. Specifically, we focus on HEI investments in arts physical infrastructure and whether these investments have any effects on regional-level business activity, including jobs and firms. To analyze HEI spillovers of physical arts infrastructure on regional jobs and firms, we use construction starts data on building projects from Dodge Analytics, Inc. and data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, which include administrative data for every college, university, and technical/vocational institution that participates in the federal student financial aid programs. We couple these data with public data on regional-level socioeconomic indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Zip-code Business Patterns data. We employ a quasi-experimental propensity-score matching design in order to control for a host of HEI and regional-level characteristics in examining the impact of infrastructure investments. The results suggest strong and consistent spillover effects (i.e. overall and specifically in the arts industry) for regions with HEIs that make these investments.

Post-Secondary Institution Level and Control: Effect on Women’s Proportion of Entrepreneurship Degrees

This study examines the influence U.S. college/university level (2-year/4-year) and control (public/private) have on the female-awarded proportion of their entrepreneurship degrees and certificates (EDCs). It also examines trends over a decade, 2006-2016. Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data on U.S. institutions awarding Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) 52.07 (Entrepreneurship and Small Business degrees/certificates) in 2006, 2011, and/or 2016 is analyzed using ANOVA/ANCOVA/repeated measures methods. Surprisingly, even with the growing focus on female entrepreneurship, results did not show significant increases in the female-awarded proportion of EDCs over the ten years. Closer examination of 2016 data shows 2-year public institutions confer a significantly larger percentage of their EDCs to women compared to both 4-year public and private institutions providing evidence that institution level and control influence the proportion and suggesting that 4-year institutions may still be gendered in terms of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship education has been empirically shown to augment entrepreneurial human and social capital, which is of key importance in entrepreneurship, particularly high-growth potential female businesses. For this reason, these results have important implications for post-secondary institution leaders and entrepreneurship educators, and serves as a call to action to pro-actively assess their environments and curriculum for potential gender biases. Suggestions provided.

Diversity in Statistics Education at Postsecondary Institutions

Statistics classes are required for postsecondary students in a variety of majors, in addition to students who are statistics majors themselves. Although many students will experience statistics class during college, there is very little research examining the state of diversity within these classes and within statistics programs. This study uses enrollment data from a large Midwestern university as well as nationally (USA) representative data collected from the United States National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to examine the status of diversity within postsecondary statistics education. Results indicate that the distribution of statistics majors by gender is fairly equitable although females may be somewhat underrepresented. In addition, Black, Hispanic, and White students are shown to be underrepresented compared to the student population, while Asian students and International students are shown to be overrepresented among statistics majors when compared to the student population. Students majoring in the social sciences are often required to take statistics classes as well; results regarding these students indicate that males are underrepresented but that these students are fairly diverse with regard to race/ethnicity. Implications and associated pedagogical guidance are explored.

By Lack of Reciprocity: Positioning Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the Organizational Field of Higher Education

ABSTRACT This study examines social closure processes in the organizational field of higher education and their implications with respect to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Using institutional comparison-group data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we analyze how organizational identity claims and non-reciprocation reveal salient between-group boundaries among different types of four-year colleges and universities. Compared to other organizational traits that could potentially give rise to social boundaries in this organizational field, findings indicate that the social divide between HWIs and HBCUs is particularly sharp. Importantly, our analyses show that this divide is the result of HWIs excluding HBCUs through non-reciprocity, and not the result of HBCUs self-segregating. The results thus suggest that social closure is one mechanism through which HWIs protect their racially privileged status. Overall, the pattern of non-reciprocity documented in this study suggests that HWIs continue to interpret HBCUs as lesser institutions of higher education, despite their significant historical and contemporary role in American higher education.

The Effects of Rising Proportions of Adult Students on Graduation Rates at Public, Two-Year Institutions

ABSTRACT Two-year public colleges serve roughly one-third of undergraduate students in the United States, and, like other types of colleges across the country, they face shifting population demographics. Additionally, completion rates at two-year institutions have received political and scholarly attention within states and across the nation in recent years. This study examined how the proportion of adult students, those 25 or older, influenced the graduation rates of two-year, public institutions. Based on multiple regression techniques using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the results of the study indicated that graduation rates decreased by less than 1% when the proportion of adult students increased by 1%. The results also revealed a negative relationship shared between graduation rates and the proportion of female students, part-time students, and the Pell Grant recipients.

Foundation Giving and Economics Research Productivity at HBCUs: Empirical Evidence from the Koch Foundation

Existing research on funding disparities between historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and non-HBCUs primarily focuses on government funding and pays little attention to foundation giving. This paper helps to fill this gap by examining the effects of funding by the Charles Koch Foundation—a major funder of economics research in the USA—on the economics research productivity at HBCUs. Using data from the foundation’s tax forms, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and Scopus, this paper examines factors that explain the foundation’s grant results and how the foundation’s money affects economics research productivity at HBCUs. The paper estimates the effects of Koch funding on three different measures of HBCU productivity: number of publications, citations, and publications in top economics journals. We report ordinary least squares, two-step generalized linear model, and Poisson results that show little or no impact from (a) recipiency of a Koch grant, (b) the total amount of grant dollars, or (c) the average amount of grant dollars on research productivity. We also obtain event study and difference-in-differences estimates of the effects of Koch grants to HBCUs on publications and publications per faculty member and again find no statistically significant impacts. The evidence obtained—consistent across different model specifications and estimation techniques—does not support the hypothesis that Koch’s funding to HBCUs is primarily geared towards enhancing the research productivity of these colleges and universities. The paper discusses alternative explanations for the Charles Koch Foundation’s targeting strategy and its involvement with particular HBCUs.

Statistical Termination or Fewer Self-Identified Students: What Is Causing the Decline in American Indian and Alaska Native College Enrollments?

Using data from the American Community Survey to conduct a difference-in-differences analysis, we investigate the impact on reported American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) college enrollment from a 2008 change in how the US Department of Education collects, processes, and maintains race and ethnicity data. This change removed the restriction that individuals select a single race or ethnicity category and classified all those indicating multiple categories as either “two or more races” or Hispanic. We find this change substantially reduced reported AIAN enrollment numbers in both the aggregate and as a proportion of the total student population. Our most conservative approach suggests the number of 2018 AIAN undergraduate and graduate students no longer classified as AIAN by the US Department of Education is 35% and 21% of their respective Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) total. Other models indicate that these undercounts may exceed 45% of their IPEDS total.

Diversity and Distance Learning: An Exploratory Study of the Relationships between Online and Minority Enrollment at Private Nonprofit Christian Colleges

Despite changing demographics in the U.S., many private nonprofit Christian colleges have been unable to recruit and retain racially diverse students, and most are experiencing declining undergraduate enrollments. The strategic plan at these institutions undoubtedly contains two directives: to increase enrollment of racially diverse students and to attract new students through online and hybrid programs. Since 2008, almost all Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) member institutions have added distance learning options. Little research has been conducted to determine whether expanded access to education has influenced a change in enrollment of racially diverse students. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) national database has tracked online enrollment for less than a decade and does not require institutions to report on the racial diversity of students enrolled online. This lack of data requires researchers to look for relationships between online options and overall institutional racial diversity. Using exploratory correlational analysis that controlled for state population racial diversity, this research revealed statistically significant, but weak relationships between the number of online-only and hybrid students enrolled at an institution and the percentage of minority students enrolled. Findings suggest increased enrollment in hybrid programs and online graduate programs at CCCU institutions are related to a higher percentage of racially diverse students, and Black or African American students, in particular. The addition of online courses and fully online programs may provide an opportunity for private nonprofit Christian colleges to close the educational attainment achievement gap between White and minority students, and in turn, participate in God’s redemptive work in the world.

Fostering Democratic Participation at Community Colleges: Understanding the Relationship Between Voting and Student, Institutional, and Environmental Factors

Objective: The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between organizational characteristics, state political climate, and student civic engagement at community colleges, operationalized in this article as student voting. Method: Utilizing a unique cross-sectional dataset compiled by the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education for the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections that merges student voting data, enrollment records from the National Student Clearinghouse, and institutional data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, we employed multi-level binary logistic regression to account for individual and organizational influences. Results: The relationship between voting and student characteristics aligns with national voting trends, in that students who are female, older, and White had higher odds of voting. However, there was one notable exception in 2012 where Black students had higher odds of voting than their White peers. We also found that students enrolled full-time and those enrolled at colleges in electoral battleground states were more likely to vote in 2012 and 2016. Weak or mixed relationships emerged between voting and environmental factors such as campaign spending, ballot initiatives, get-out-the-vote programs, restrictive voter laws, and compositional diversity of the student body. Conclusion: This study provides insight for community college leaders on potential ways to engage students in an effort to promote voter turnout in a presidential election year on their campuses. Specifically, we posit that institutions could highlight the salience of public policy issues for students, lobby for less restrictive voting laws, and implement evaluation programs of their civic engagement initiatives.

What Do We Know About “Race Unknown”?

One ethnoracial reporting category perplexes higher education researchers: “race and ethnicity unknown.” Using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we constructed a 28-year panel of 4,401 institutions. We find that the for-profit sector ranges from 5% to 18% “race unknown” students. In addition, almost 10% of students attending the most selective institutions were reported as “race unknown” in 2009 before dropping off precipitously. The size of the “race unknown” category can be attributed to some combination of student responses and data collection practices. We suggest researchers refrain from dropping “race unknown” from their studies as doing so may bias findings for the other ethnoracial categories, especially when comparing rates of student enrollment across institutional types.

Smoke-free and tobacco-free colleges and universities in the United States

ObjectiveTo describe the number and proportion of accredited, degree-granting institutions with 100% smoke-free and 100% tobacco-free protections across the USA and by state.MethodsData on postsecondary education institutions from the US...

Social Capital’s Impact on College Graduation Rates, Debt, and Student Loan Defaults

This study extends the literature on education economics and student retention by examining social capital as a predictor of college graduation rates, student debt levels, and student loan default rates. Coleman’s social capital theory is employed to understand how social influences can impact students through external social support (i.e., social capital). The study uses school-level data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and two social capital measures. Results suggest that social capital, at both the state and the community level, significantly influences graduation rates, student debt levels, and loan default rates. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The Impact of College and University Advertising Expenditures on Key Performance Indicators Using Business Analytics Modeling

The Impact of College and University Advertising Expenditures on Key Performance Indicators Using Business Analytics Modeling

Is economics STEM? Trends in the discipline from 1997 to 2018

The authors of this article examine trends in the economics discipline regarding the classification of some undergraduate economics majors, i.e., econometrics and quantitative economics degrees, as STEM. According to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the number of institutions conferring undergraduate econometrics and quantitative economics (STEM-eligible) degrees rose from 25 in 2012 to 71 in 2018, with total degrees conferred increasing 12-fold. By 2018, STEM-eligible economics degrees comprised 13.2 percent of all undergraduate economics degrees conferred, up from just 1.2 percent in 2012. This brief note outlines trends in undergraduate economics majors regarding STEM and non-STEM degree distinctions and discusses potential motivations for these changes.

Institutional Expenditures and Student Graduation and Retention

As the cost of higher education continues to rise faster than inflation and as the pressure from community colleges offering four-year degrees increases (See: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/04/26/more-community-colleges-are-offering-bachelors-degrees), it is imperative that colleges and universities examine how they allocate finite dollars in ways that increase retention and graduation rates. This study examined correlations between certain expense categories as defined by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and higher retention and six-year graduation rates of first-time, full-time students attending Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) member institutions. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis suggest that the strongest correlations were dollars spent on instruction per full-time equivalent student being positively correlated to higher six-year graduation rates, and higher percentage of total spending used for research being positively correlated to higher retention rates.