1. UIUC- 6 year raduation rates of incoming freshman who entered from 1994-2006, includes college, race/Hispanic, gender, and whether the person changed colleges while at Illinois
http://www.dmi.illinois.edu/stuenr/index.htm#gradrates
2. University of Wisconsin- Madison- 6 year graduation rates for freshman who entered from 1996-2005, including at UW-Madison, at any UW school, and any institution, female rates, and "targeted minority" rates
https://apir.wisc.edu/retentionandgraduation/NSC_Enhanced_Graduation_2012.pdf
3. UIC- 6 year graduation rates for incoming fall freshman from 2004-2008, by race/Hispanic and gender, includes underlying numbers
http://www.oir.uic.edu/students/pdfs/IPEDS_GradRate_RE_GEN_FR_FERPA.pdf
4. North Carolina University system- 6 year graduation rates for incoming freshman from 2001-2005 for 17 schools in North Carolina system, includes whether graduated from starting institution or any institution within the system.
https://www.northcarolina.edu/sites/default/files/retention_graduation_report_2012.pdf
5. Oregon State University- 6 year graduation rates for incoming freshman from 2000-2007, includes gender, race/Hispanic, in-state vs out-of-state, no underlying numbers
http://oregonstate.edu/admin/aa/ir/sites/default/files/retention-graduation-gender-ethnicity-residency.pdf
4. College Measures- Potential website to use
Positives- Data on lots of schools, especially useful for smaller universities and community colleges, which are hard to find good data for; break down by race/Hispanic; backed by American Institutes for Research, which seems reliable; some past data; two year institutions include transfer rates
Negatives- Does not say how they got data; does not give underlying numbers, just percentages; unsure over what time period they measure graduations; race/Hispanic data only goes back one year, overall data only goes back five; no info on what happened to transfer students
Overall, I'd be very hesitant to use this data, but other than this source, I haven't found good data other than for large, public, four year universities, and the data I have found for other schools has been just as simplistic. Should I be more worried about false inferences from only looking at big schools, or with errors due to sub-optimal data over a larger sample. My gut says the later, and that if I can only make inferences that apply to large schools, so be it, but I would love your opinion.
http://collegemeasures.org/
5. National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988-2000 This is the data used by Adelman in "Revisiting the Toolbox." I have requested the cd from the library and will update with how good the data is when received.
6. A Stronger Nation through Higher Education- A report by the Lumina Foundation, gives percent of residents of American states, counties, and cites who have at least an associates degree; level of education for citizens of each state, degree attainment broken down by race; all in percentages, not hard numbers
http://strongernation.luminafoundation.org/report/downloads/pdfs/a-stronger-nation-2014.pdf
7. National Information Center for Higher Education Policymaking and Analysis- Website with numerous data on college, including graduation rates, affordability, efficiency, state support. and workforce and economic conditions for each US state; combination of numbers and percentages
http://www.higheredinfo.org/
8. National Student Clearing House- Website that tracks a large number of university graduation rates, broken down by state, type of institution, full time/part time status, and age. Does not, however, have background, and some reports lack the base data sets.
http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/
When I used to play bridge at lunch with my then fellow assistant professors I learn several cutesy phrases. One of those is - a peak is worth two finesses. With the data you've listed above, having a look should give some immediate payoff in your own understanding, and in this case you won't be considered cheating at the card game. Looking doesn't commit you to writing a paper that relies on the data. It is just looking.
ReplyDeleteI am curious how you chose the university data, once you got past our campus. Could you readily get data for other universities?
To be honest, I randomly selected schools, trying to find some smaller ones and some outside the Midwest. So far, uiuc's data sets has blown all others out of the water, except maybe on transfers, which other schools have better data on. Do you have any advice on finding good data sources, other than brute force of looking everywhere?
DeleteWell, let's hear it for honesty. I won't comment on whether it is always the best policy, but in research, absolutely.
DeleteYou might try this link and also the department of education site. I believe the NCAA also maintains a site on graduation rates.
One of the the things you should be asking is whether the information is comparable across these sites. (Also whether the national sites report what the campus reports or if there are discrepancies.) Why campuses report different information is its own issue.