Proposed Changes to IPEDS 2009-10 and beyond

The following changes are being requested from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to be effective beginning with the 2009-10 IPEDS data collection. There are two types of changes:

1. Changes to comply with requirements in the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008 (PL 110-315), and
2. Changes to simplify IPEDS reporting and reduce reporting burden for nondegree-granting institutions

Please see the February 24 Federal Register posting (Volume 74, Number 35, Page 8239) regarding a 60-day comment period on these changes at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-3924.pdf (42 KB).

(1) Changes to comply with requirements in HEOA

    a) Collect data to calculate various net prices of attendance and multi-year tuition rates

HEOA requires the U.S. Department of Education to add to the College Navigator website:

• three years of average institutional net price of attendance for first-time, full-time aided students;
• the institutional net price of attendance for Title IV aid recipients by income category; and,
• a multi-year tuition calculator.

Not all of the data needed to meet these requirements are currently collected in IPEDS. If approved, the following data items will be collected beginning in the 2009-10 data collection. These changes were developed based on input from the IPEDS Technical Review Panel and comments received from the community over a 30-day comment period:

Changes to Institutional Characteristics Survey

Institutions will continue to report price of attendance for full-time, first-time undergraduate students as currently reported to IPEDS except:

• Tuition and required fees will be reported separately. This will be used in the multi-year tuition calculator.
• Four years of data rather than three will be reported, to align the price of attendance data with the SFA data, which lags one year. This will be used to calculate net price of attendance. For example, in Fall 2009, IC will collect price of attendance data for the following academic years:
  • 2009-10
  • 2008-09 (preloaded from prior year)
  • 2007-08 (preloaded from prior year)
  • 2006-07 (new – preloaded from prior year)
• For the most recent year of tuition data and required fees data, institutions will report if the amounts reported are guaranteed under a tuition guarantee plan. This will be used in the multi-year tuition calculator.

Changes to the Student Financial Aid (SFA) Survey

A number of additions will need to be made to the IPEDS SFA forms in order to collect the data necessary to calculate net prices of attendance required by HEOA. The changes are based on suggestions from an IPEDS Technical Review Panel that met to discuss how best to meet the HEOA requirements. These changes are summarized below.

Additions to 2009-10 SFA Forms to Calculate and Report Three Years of Average Institutional Net Price of Attendance
	2008-09	2007-08	2006-07
Number of full-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates receiving grant aid from federal, state, and institutional sources. (Carried forward from screen #3 – number of students receiving any grant aid)	Carried forward	Preloaded from prior year, updatable	Report this value
Of these, what are their living arrangements?
On-campus	Report this value	Report this value	Report this value
Off-campus with family	Report this value	Report this value	Report this value
Off-campus not with family	Report this value	Report this value	Report this value
Unknown	Calculated value	Calculated value	Calculated value
Total grant aid received by all full-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates from federal, state, and institutional sources. (Calculated and carried forward from screen #3 – number of students receiving any grant aid multiplied by average amount of grant aid received)	Calculated value, carried forward	Preloaded from prior year, updatable	Report this value

Additions to 2009-10 SFA Forms to Calculate and Report Average Institutional Net Price of Attendance by Income Categories
	This column available in Spring 2010		This column available beginning in Spring 2011		This column available beginning in Spring 2012
	2008-09		Prior year data, collected in future years, preloaded		Prior year data, collected in future years, preloaded
Income Level	Number of students receiving aid	Total grant aid received by these students	Number of students receiving aid	Total grant aid received by these students	Number of students receiving aid	Total grant aid received by these students
$0-30,000	Report this value	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
$30,001-48,000	Report this value	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
$48,001-75,000	Report this value	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
$75,001-110,000	Report this value	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
$110,001 and more	Report this value	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
NOTE: In Spring 2010, data for 2008-09 will be reported. In Spring 2011, data for 2009-10 will be reported, and data for 2008-09 will be preloaded. In Spring 2012, data for 2010-11 will be reported, and data for 2008-09 and 2009-10 will be preloaded. Institutions will be able to revise the preloaded data.

Additions to 2009-10 SFA Forms to Calculate and Report Average Institutional Net Price of Attendence by Income Categories
	This column available in Spring 2010	This column available beginning in Spring 2011	This column available beginning in Spring 2012
	2008-09	Prior year data, collected in future years, preloaded	Prior year data, collected in future years, preloaded
Total number of full-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking students receiving Title IV aid	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
Of these, what are their living arrangements?
On-campus	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
Off-campus with family	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
Off-campus without family	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
Unknown	Report this value	Preloaded, updatable	Preloaded, updatable
NOTE: In Spring 2010, data for 2008-09 will be reported. In Spring 2011, data for 2009-10 will be reported, and data for 2008-09 will be preloaded. In Spring 2012, data for 2010-11 will be reported, and data for 2008-09 and 2009-10 will be preloaded. Institutions will be able to revise the preloaded data.

    b) Revise collection of data for calculating student-to-faculty ratios

Changes were made to the Fall Enrollment survey in 2008-09 to meet the HEOA requirement to display institutions’ student-to-faulty ratios on the College Navigator website by August 2009. During the collection of these data in 2008-09, the IPEDS Help Desk received comments from many institutional representatives suggesting ways to improve the methodology for calculating this measure. In addition, due to the timing of the two surveys that collect data needed to calculate the ratio, Human Resources and Fall Enrollment, some institutions were forced to revise, re-edit, and relock their Fall Enrollment survey after they had already completed and "locked" their data.

In response to this feedback, the following changes will be made to the methodology used in 2009-10:

• A single line item asking for the institution's student-to-faculty ratio will comprise Part F, with an accompanying worksheet to assist in calculating the ratio.
• Instead of reporting each of the components necessary to calculate the ratio, or having those components pre-populated from the Human Resources survey and prior sections of the Fall Enrollment survey as was done in the 2008-09 collection, institutions will now be asked to provide only their student-to-faculty ratio. A worksheet will be available to provide guidance on how to calculate the ratio. This will resolve issues involved with the "locking order" of the Human Resources and Enrollment components.
• The worksheet provided will allow institutions to subtract instructional staff teaching exclusively non-credit courses from their full- and part-time numbers of instructional staff. For institutions that have a large amount of non-credit activity (most often public two-year institutions), this will better align the student data with the instructional staff data being used in the ratio, thus improving data quality.
• The worksheet provided will allow institutions to add administrators and other professionals on campus who teach courses but who are not reported to IPEDS as instructors (since it is not their "primary function") to the instructional staff number used in their ratio. For many institutions, administrators and other professionals on staff teach courses throughout the year, and allowing those instructors to be included in the instructional staff number would improve data quality.

    c) Incorporate Spring Supplement 2009 items into IPEDS beginning in 2009-10

Beginning in 2009-10, the items that were included in the one-time Spring Supplement 2009 (SS09) survey will be collected in IPEDS as indicated below:

New Location of SS09 Items Starting 2009-10
Spring Supplement 2009 Item	New location in IPEDS components
A) Please indicate the percent of all undergraduates enrolled in Fall 20XX who are formally registered with the office of disability services (or the equivalent office) at your institution as students with disabilities: 3 percent or less If more than 3 percent: _____%	Institutional Characteristics form beginning in 2009-10
B)(i) For 4-year institutions, for the 20XX cohort of bachelor’s degree-seeking, full-time, first-time undergraduate students:  Number of students in the cohort who completed their program within 200% of normal time (8 yrs)	A new survey component will be permanently added to the spring collection called Graduation Rates 200 (GR200); it will be separate from the regular GRS component so not to confuse the two different cohorts that are being reported on.
B)(ii) For less than 4-year institutions, for the 20XX cohort of full-time, first-time undergraduate students:  a.  Number of students in the cohort who completed their program within 100% of normal time	Beginning in 2009-10, GRS forms for less than 4-year institutions will be aligned with the 4-year GRS forms to include reporting on the GRS for 100 percent of normal time in addition to 150 of normal time.
b. Number of students in the cohort who completed their program within 200% of normal time	A new survey component will be permanently added to the spring collection called Graduation Rates 200 (GR200); it will be separate from the regular GRS component so not to confuse the two different cohorts that are being reported on.  For 2009-10, this form will also collect the number of students who completed within 100% of normal time to make up for the one-year gap of adding the 100% data to the regular GRS form for <4-year institutions.

(2) Changes to Reduce Reporting Burden for Nondegree-granting Institutions

The following changes will be effective with the 2009-10 IPEDS data collection, if approved. This list is based on suggestions from the IPEDS Technical Review Panel and comments from members of the higher education community, and will improve data quality and comparability, and decrease institutional reporting burden.

Changes to IPEDS Forms for Nondegree-Granting Institutions
Survey Form		Changes
Institutional Characteristics	Part D – Student Charges	For Academic reporters, eliminate Student Charges and Room and Board, leaving only Student Charges Questions and Price of Attendance
	Part E – Additional Information	Eliminate Athletic Association
Human Resources	Parts A,B,C – Employees by Assigned Position	Consolidate the following categories—primarily instruction, instruction/research/public service, primarily research, and primarily public service—into one category: "Staff whose primary responsibility is instruction, research, and/or public service."
	All Parts	Combine the EAP and Fall Staff sections into one section: for odd-numbered years, require the reporting of data by race/ethnicity and gender, and for even-numbered years, make the reporting of race/ethnicity and gender optional.
Fall Enrollment	Part A – Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity and Gender	Eliminate column 2 (transfers-in) and column 5 (non-degree/certificate seeking)
Finance (FASB, for-profit)	Part A – Balance Sheet Information	Eliminate
	Part B – Summary of Changes in Equity	Eliminate Note that Total revenues (Line 01) will be collected in Part D, Line 09; and Total expenses (Line 02) will be collected in Part E, Line 07.
	Part D – Revenues and Investment Return	Eliminate Line 07 – Sales and services of auxiliary activities
	Part E – Expenses by Function	Eliminate Line 04 – Auxiliary enterprises
Finance (FASB, Not-for-Profit)	Screening questions	Eliminate the endowment assets screening question (SQ3) Eliminate the intercollegiate athletic expenses screening question (SQ4)
	Part A – Statement of Financial Position, Pages 1 and 2	Eliminate
	Part B – Summary of Changes in Net Assets	Eliminate Note that Total revenues and investment return (Line 01) will be collected in Part D (Line 16), and Total expenses (Line 02) will be collected in Part E, Line 13.
	Part D – Revenues and Investment Return	Eliminate Line 12, Sales and services of auxiliary activities Eliminate Line 13, Hospital revenue Eliminate Line 14, Independent operations
	Part E – Expenses by Functional and Natural Classification	Eliminate Line 07, Auxiliary enterprises Eliminate Line 09, Hospital services Eliminate Line 10, Independent operations
	Part H – Value of Endowment Asset	Eliminate
Finance (GASB, Public)	Screening questions	Eliminate the reporting models for special-purpose governments screening question (SQ3) Eliminate the intercollegiate athletic expenses screening question (SQ4) Eliminate the endowment assets screening question (SQ5) Eliminate the screening question on the number of component units using GASB and FASB standards (SQ6)
	Part A – Statement of Net Assets	Eliminate
	Part B – Revenues and Other Additions	Eliminate Line 05, Sales and services of educational activities Eliminate Line 06, Sales and services of hospitals Eliminate Line 07, Independent operations Eliminate Line 20, Capital appropriations  Eliminate Line 21, Capital grants & gifts  Eliminate Line 22, Additions to permanent endowments
	Part C – Expenses and Other Deductions	Continue to collect operating and nonoperating expenses by function, but eliminate the following: Line 11, Auxiliary enterprises Line 12, Hospital services Line 13, Independent operations Line 16, Interest
	Part D – Summary of Changes in Net Assets	Eliminate Note: Line 01 (Total revenues and other additions) is already collected in Part B (Line 25), and Line 02 (Total expenses and deductions) is already collected in Part C (Line 19).
	Part F – Component Unit That Uses FASB Standards	Eliminate
	Part G – Component Unit That Uses GASB Standards	Eliminate
	Part H – Details of Endowment Assets	Eliminate

Note: The average institutional net price of attendance also forms the basis for three of six "College Affordability and Transparency Lists" related to institutional prices in HEOA. Under HEOA there are several proposed transparency lists that will compare net price in nine institutional categories. For example, the 5 percent of institutions with the highest net price in the most recent academic year and the highest percentage increase over a three-year period, and the 10 percent of institutions with the lowest net price in each institutional category will be listed on College Navigator. (Sec. 132(c)(1))