The History and Evolution of IPEDS

Abstract

The federal government has collected data from colleges and universities for more than a century. However, how and what data are collected has evolved over time, as has the purposes for collecting those data. The most systematic collection of data happens through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which is required to be reported by any institution that awards federal student aid. While initially collected to describe the state of postsecondary education in the United States to policymakers, a shift in recent decades has focused on making data available to students and parents to compare institutions. Now, the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 is overdue and one proposed change-moving from an institution-level to a student-level data collection-would transform IPEDS. We trace the beginnings of federal data collection from institutions to its current state and discuss how the data collection has evolved over time.

An architecture of the information collected from higher education institutions by NIAD-QE

“…When the survey was introduced in 1985-86, it collected data on a voluntary basis from all institutions whose primary purpose was to provide postsecondary education programs open to the general public. Today, it is a mandatory reporting system for institutions that participate in Title IV federal student financial aid, following a decision by Congress in 1992 [8]. As of 2016-17, the IPEDS survey components include institutional characteristics, admissions, fall enrollment, 12-month enrollment, student financial aid, completions, graduation rates, outcome measures, human resources, finances, and academic libraries [9].…”

“…IPEDS adopted an institutional-level data collection approach from the beginning, although a student-level data collection was proposed by the NCES and, following a feasibility study, endorsed by a political commission in 2005. The proposal faced considerable opposition, primarily from private and nonprofit colleges and universities, as well as from privacy groups on both the left and the right of the political spectrum [8].…”

Using R Shiny to develop a dashboard using IPEDS, U.S. Census, and bureau of labor statistics data

“…The integrated postsecondary data system (IPEDS) has been collecting data since the 1980s [ 6 ]. Currently, IPEDS collects data on over 7, 000 institutions on over 250 variables, and IPEDs data in one form or another is available from 1980 to the present, though methods of data collection have changed over time [ 7 ].…”