#17

Subject: Stepped Up IPEDS Enforcement and 2003-04 Schedule and Changes

Prepared: July 2003

Type: IPEDS Reporting Enforcement and 2003-04 Changes

Summary

Registration for the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is scheduled to open July 30, 2003. If registration is not completed by the institutional keyholder by August 27, 2003, a letter to the institutional CEO will be sent on September 3, 2003. All Title IV institutions are required to complete IPEDS surveys satisfactorily and in a timely fashion. There are penalties for failure to comply.

Following the 2001-02 survey cycle, the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) sent 100 warning letters to institutions that were not in compliance, levied fines to five institutions in the range of $13,000-$17,000, and sent one institution a notice that its participation in federal student aid programs was terminated. According to NCES, 460 institutions did not respond to one or more of the 2002-03 IPEDS surveys. The FSA has sent letters to approximately 85 institutions levying fines ranging from $11,500 to $40,500; the remainder will receive warning notices. The Department promises to be stricter about reporting compliance in the future.

Changes for 2003-04 surveys need to be taken into account by institutional keyholders to ensure reporting compliance.

Current Status

Registration

• On July 23, institutional keyholders should receive institutional IDs and passwords. Institutional CEOs will be made responsible for IDs and passwords if there is no current (2002-03) keyholder.
  
  
• Registration opens on July 30, 2003. Keyholders will register for all three data collections at one time. ALL IPEDS 2003-04 survey forms, instructions, and file import specifications will be posted when the system opens for registration (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds.webbase.asp). Register by August 26, 2003.



• On August 27, 2003, NCES will assess the status of keyholder registrations.



• If the institutional keyholder is not registered according to the assessment, NCES will send a letter to the institutional CEO on September 3, 2003, requesting appointment of a new keyholder.

Opening and Follow-up Communications

• The schedule and surveys for the fall, winter, and spring collections are listed below. The NCES will e-mail the keyholders when each collection opens.



• Follow-up communications during each collection will provide reminders to institutions about their status.



• Four weeks before the collection closing date: letters will be sent to CEOs of institutions that do not have registered keyholders; an e-mail will be sent to keyholders if no data at all have been entered.



• Three weeks before the collection closing date: phone calls will be made to CEOs of institutions that still do not have a registered keyholder.



• Two weeks before the collection closing date: phone calls will be made to CEOs and keyholders if no data have been entered; e-mail notices will also be sent to keyholders if no data have been entered or if the data have not been locked.



• One week before the collection closing date: e-mail notices will be sent to keyholders if no data have been entered or if the data have not been locked.

Compliance

• All Title IV institutions are required to respond to IPEDS. Under Section 490 of the Higher Education Amendments (HEA) of 1992 (PL 102-325), "institutions will complete surveys conducted as part of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) … in a timely manner and to the satisfaction of the Secretary."



• This means that institutions are required to complete all of the IPEDS surveys in order to satisfy the requirements of the HEA, and that an institution must submit and lock full and complete survey responses in order to be considered a respondent.

Noncompliance Process and Consequences

• During the 2003-04 collection year, as in the previous collection years, NCES must compile a list of nonrespondents to each of the surveys.



• Nonrespondent lists are verified and forwarded to FSA within 45 days of closing.



• An institution's failure to submit data could jeopardize its participation in the federal student aid programs authorized by Title IV. The Department of Education may fine an institution any amount, up to $27,500, for each statutory or regulatory violation.



• The FSA sent warning letters to more than 100 institutions for nonresponse to 2000-01 IPEDS. Five institutions were levied fines ranging from $13,000 to $17,000. One institution received notice that its participation in federal student aid programs was terminated.



• Of the 460 nonrespondents to one or more of the IPEDS collections in 2002-03, FSA fined approximately 85 institutions between $11,500 and $40,500; the remainder will receive warning letters.

System Changes for 2003-04

• Correction of Prior Year Data: Data collected in 2002-03 will be available for correction. Whoever placed the final lock on 2002-03 data will be able to make corrections. If you are a keyholder and you are the final lock, call the Help Desk for access to the correction system. If your coordinator is the final lock, you must contact them to indicate that changes are necessary. If data are corrected, they will need to be edited, locked and remigrated. Corrected/revised data will be available through the Peer Analysis System. NOTE: the correction system was developed to correct LARGE errors or to allow submission of missing data; the system is not set up for minor corrections (e.g., changing 0 to 2 in a cell).



• Customizing Screens: Screening questions (SQs) are used to determine survey applicability or to generate customized data screens. The purpose is to lessen institutional burden, but the initial rollout and use of SQs may be difficult. Keyholders are urged to read the SQs very carefully and to call the Help Desk for assistance. The Help Desk should also be contacted to get SQ responses from a previous collection during the 2003-04 cycle changed so correct surveys can be generated by the system for subsequent collections. For example, if an institution reported the institution does not have 15 or more full-time employees to the fall 2003 IC SQ and this is inaccurate, the institution will not have winter collection forms generated. To address this, the institutional keyholder will need to call the Help Desk to get the fall 2003 IC SQ response changed.

Reporting Changes for the Fall 2003 Collection

For a complete description see http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/pdf/webbase2000/changes0304.pdf

• Institutional Characteristics (IC): E-mail address of CEO is requested (to facilitate communications; not for files).



• Institutional Characteristics (IC):A link to the institution's Mission Statement (AIR recommendation) or short text description of the Mission Statement is requested.



• Institutional Characteristics (IC): There are new edits for Part D: Student Charges.



• Institutional Characteristics (IC): To reduce the reporting burden, there is a new, shorter version of the survey for private, < 2-year institutions.



• Institutional Characteristics (IC): Graduation Rates (GRS) SQ asking about athletically awarded aid moved to IC, Part E.



• Institutional Characteristics (IC): The exclusion question has been moved from Salaries (SA) to IC. The question (e.g., all part-time, military, etcetera) is restructured into a 4-part question; each exclusion category is separately listed and institutions are asked to indicate which exclusion applies.



• Completions (C): An enhanced program search utility is provided in a new, easier-to-use CIP selection screen.



• Completions (C): Institutions have the option of reporting completions using either the 1990 Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) or CIP2000 (to maintain institutional consistency with the US Immigration and Naturalization Service's SEVIS reporting system which requires that institutions use CIP2000). Respondents will specify which CIP version they are submitting. Data will be stored in the data collection system in the version in which they were submitted, but 1990 CIP codes will be converted to CIP2000 codes for data release (Peer Analysis System, etc.). CIP2000 will remain optional for the fall 2004 collection of completions, but will be mandatory beginning with the fall 2005 collection of completions.

Reporting Changes for the Winter 2003-04 Collection

• Employees by Assigned Position (EAP): Faculty status cells for the following four jobs categories will no longer be available: Technical and paraprofessionals, clerical and secretarial, skilled crafts, service/maintenance.



• Employees by Assigned Position (EAP): Medical school pages will be available only to 4-year and above institutions.



• Salaries (SA): The contract length/teaching period SQ will be restructured into a 2-part question: (1) Do you have full-time (FT) instructional faculty?; (2) If yes, specify contract lengths/teaching periods.



• Salaries (SA): Housing and tuition benefit questions will be restructured into a 3-option format: No, no housing/tuition benefits; Yes (restricted); or Yes (not restricted).



• Fall Staff (S): The Fall Staff survey is required in 2003-04.



• Fall Staff (S): The contract length/teaching period SQ will be restructured into a 2-part question: (1) Do you have full-time (FT) instructional faculty?; (2) If yes, specify contract lengths/teaching periods.



• Enrollment (E): The Enrollment survey is available for completion in Winter 2003-04 and also in Spring 2004.



• Enrollment (E): In 2003-04, age information is required; residence information is optional.



• Enrollment (E): Rather than collect some detail and the totals regarding full-time and part-time undergraduates (see Part A), NCES plans to collect everything at the detailed level, and then calculate totals.



• Enrollment (E): Fall-to-fall retention of prior year full-time and part-time entering cohort (first-time, degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate students) is requested. Four-year institutions will report on their bachelor's degree-seeking cohort; less than 4-year institutions will report on their entire cohort. This is optional in 2003-04 and will be mandatory beginning 2004-05.

Reporting Changes for the Spring 2004 Collection

• Enrollment (E): See Winter 2003-04 notes above.



• Student Financial Aid (SFA): NO CHANGES.



• Graduation Rates (GRS - 1997 cohort for 4-year institutions and 2000 cohort for < 4-year institutions): The transfer-out mission SQ is replaced with a statement that informs respondents that if they do have such a mission, they are expected to report transfer-out data if they have it.



• Graduation Rates (GRS - 1997 cohort for 4-year institutions and 2000 cohort for < 4-year institutions): The collection of time-to-degree for bachelor's completers from the other-than-bachelor's subcohort (Section III) is deleted.



• Finance (F): Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) IPEDS reporting is still being phased in. The last institutions will phase in for spring 2005 (fiscal year 2004).



• Finance (F): The new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) expense reporting form, a matrix of functional and natural classifications, is no longer is optional.



• Finance (F): Public and private, not-for-profit institutions are asked to report endowment assets (market value at the beginning and end of the year). This is optional in Spring 2004 and will be mandatory starting in Spring 2005.

Reporting Heads Up

• Changes in IPEDS for Institutions with Multiple Campuses: Through NCES, ED is proposing a change in policy regarding how institutions with multiple campuses report data for IPEDS. Beginning in fall 2004, ED would require institutions that have a single federal student financial aid Program Participation Agreement (PPA) for multiple campuses to submit separate IPEDS reports (except finance) for every campus that has a unique IPEDS ID number. As an interim step, beginning in fall 2003, ED proposes that every campus that has a unique IPEDS ID number will report data consistently, either separately for all IPEDS reports (with the exception of finance) or combined for IPEDS reports covering similar topics (for example, in the winter collection, Employees by Assigned Position (EAP), SA, and S must all be reported the same way). For more information, see AIR Alert #16 or see the complete report and recommendations of the NCES Technical Review Panel on IPEDS data reporting structures and clustering (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/trp1.asp).



• Race/Ethnicity: NCES will advise the postsecondary education community as soon as resolution is reached via "What's New" and "This Week in IPEDS", http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds. It is anticipated that there may be notice before the end of the calendar year.

Implications for Institutions

It is important for institutions to monitor IPEDS communications and to be mindful of reporting schedules and changes in IPEDS reporting requirements. Warning letters, fines, and a program termination have resulted from noncompliance, and increased emphasis on compliance has been promised.

It is prudent to provide a link to the institution's mission statement rather than a short text description of the mission statement, as abbreviated statements may lead to misleading interpretations about the institution.

The SQs should be read very carefully. The SQs are used to determine which surveys an institution is required to complete OR which sections of the various surveys apply. It is better to call the Help Desk for further explanations than to guess. Guessing can lead to data entry screens that are inappropriate for the institution or to having the institution classified inaccurately.

Institutions at which multiple individuals or offices complete surveys may wish to review 2003-04 materials and schedules to ensure consistency, coordination and timely response across the surveys.

If an institution has multiple campuses, it should decide whether to report IPEDS surveys separately for each campus or for all campuses combined. It should then coordinate the implementation of this decision across all offices responsible for completing the IPEDS surveys.

Timeline

July 23, 2003: IDs and passwords will be e-mailed to 2002-03 keyholders; IDs and passwords will be mailed to CEOs if there was no 2002-03 keyholder.

July 30, 2003: Registration opens; all keyholders must register for the 2003-04 collection cycle; current keyholder contact information will be preloaded; ALL IPEDS 2003-04 survey forms, instructions, and import specifications will be posted when the system opens for registration.

August 26, 2003: Deadline for keyholders to register. Status of registration will be determined the following day.

September 3, 2003: By this date, a letter will be sent to CEO if the keyholder has not registered, naming the 2002-03 keyholder, requesting follow-up or appointment of new keyholder.

September 10, 2003: Fall Collection of Institutional Characteristics and Completions opens.

October 22, 2003: Fall Collection of Institutional Characteristics and Completions closes for institutions.

November 5, 2003: Fall Collection of Institutional Characteristics and Completions closes for coordinators.

December 3, 2003: Winter Collection of Employees by Assigned Position, Salaries, Fall Staff, and Enrollment (also available in Spring 2004) opens.

January 28, 2004: Winter Collection of Employees by Assigned Position, Salaries, Fall Staff , and Enrollment (also available in Spring 2004) closes for institutions.

February 11, 2004: Winter Collection of Employees by Assigned Position , Salaries, Fall Staff , and Enrollment (also available in Spring 2004) closes for coordinators.

March 10, 2004: Spring Collection of Enrollment, Student Financial Aid, Finance, and Graduation Rates opens.

April 21, 2004: Spring Collection of Enrollment, Student Financial Aid, Finance, and Graduation Rates closes for institutions.

May 5, 2004: Spring Collection of Enrollment, Student Financial Aid, Finance, and Graduation Rates closes for coordinators.

Fall, 2003: Interim requirements for consistent reporting for surveys of same type.

Fall, 2004: New requirement for separate reporting by each campus.

Additional Resources

• IPEDS Contact: Janice Plotczyk, 202-502-7459, Janice.Plotczyk@ed.gov.



• IPEDS Contact: Susan Broyles, 202-502-7318, Susan.Broyles@ed.gov.



• IPEDS survey items, instructions, import specifications, an reporting requirement changes will be posted at the time the registration system opens on July 30,2003, at: http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/webbase.asp



• CIP2000 Manual in .pdf format and electronic version of indices, search capabilities and crosswalks are available at: http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/whatsnew.asp



• Recommendations of the NCES Technical Review Panel on IPEDS data reporting structures and clustering ( http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/trpl.asp)

Authors: Marsha Hirano-Nakanishi and Thomas Martin

Coordinated by the Higher Education Data Policy Committee. All opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Association for Institutional Research.