This analysis uses data from the 1996/01 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:96/01) and the 2000/01 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:2000/01). Two NPSAS data collections conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics provide the base-year sample for the BPS and the B&B studies. The BPS survey participants were sampled from the 1995–96 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:96) and the B&B survey participants were sampled from the 2000 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:2000).

The NPSAS survey data underwent several data quality evaluations, which included both on-line data editing procedures and post-data collection editing. The on-line data editing ensured that the data collected fell within legitimate ranges and where feasible, items were cross-checked against other related items. After data collection, the data were cleaned and edited using several steps including verification of one-way frequencies for each item, cross-tabulations of related items, standard variable recoding and formatting (such as dates), the determination of outlier values, and logical imputations. After the CATI data were cleaned and edited, composite variables for specific data analyses were created, which were subjected to similar cleaning and checking procedures.