Implementing a Student-Level Data Network (Part II): Insights from Institutional Representatives
Published Jan 2021
We cannot continue to ask students – and their families – to make one of the largest and most important investments of their lives without clearer information about what their time and money will yield. Fortunately, support is broad across the country and across the political spectrum for a federal student-level data network (SLDN), which would streamline data reporting and answer key questions about students’ postsecondary outcomes.
Anticipating the questions that would fall to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to answer in building and maintaining an SLDN, RTI International (RTI), a nonprofit research institute, joined IHEP, the leader of the Postsecondary Data Collaborative, both acting in an independent capacity to host a series of expert convenings to outline issues surrounding the SLDN’s construction and implementation.
Implementing a Student-Level Data Network (Part II): Insights from Institutional Representatives is the second brief in the series emerging from those convenings to support the modernization of our postsecondary data infrastructure. The brief shares perspectives from 12 experts from diverse institutional backgrounds, including public two-year, private nonprofit four-year, and private for-profit four-year institutions, as well as individuals who work in public system and association offices. The representatives reflected on example file layouts and data collection models with an eye to what data are available for all students, when data are available for reporting, and other key factors that could streamline data submission or reduce reporting burdens.