Studies and Reports

AIR’s Guide to Higher Education Federal Earnings Data, written by Dr. Alexandria Walton Radford of Sova, provides a side-by-side comparison of four federal sources of postsecondary earnings data: the Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS), College Scorecard, Census Bureau’s Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) Explorer, and IRS-supported Secure Query System. The guide compares their purposes, earnings measures, populations, and coverage; examines potential financial aid and reputational implications; and identifies opportunities for institutions to use these data to better understand program outcomes and support institutional improvement.

AIR partnered wtih EDUCAUSE and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) to release the Change With Analytics Playbook, a comprehensive resource designed to support institutions in creating a culture and capacity for strategic data use. Building on their 2019 Change With Analytics joint statement, the associations created the new playbook to help all higher education institutions make strides in leveraging data for strategic decision-making. The free resource contains 16 “plays” for data leaders to follow in order to make significant progress on their institution’s analytics goals.

AIR partnered with EDUCAUSE and NACUBO in early 2019 to work collaboratively to elevate data-informed decision making at higher education institutions. The result was ultimately this joint statement. All three associations stand together with a strong sense of urgency to reaffirm higher education’s commitment to the use of data and analytics to make better strategic decisions. Higher education must re-energize its efforts and unleash the power of data and analytics across higher education to support students and institutions.

America's students, policymakers, and institutions need better information about our postsecondary system, especially in this era of rising college costs and stagnating completion rates. To address this problem, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) convened an expert working group to develop targeted recommendations for improving the national postsecondary data infrastructure. As a result of this working group, AIR published a paper entitled Institutional Research Capacity: Foundations of Federal Data Quality. The paper is one of six in the series authored or co-authored by AIR members. The entire series consists of 11 policy papers designed to inform state and federal data policy conversations.

AIR sought to identify the tasks involved in the work of IR across all titles and variations represented in its membership. Position descriptions and announcements for vacant positions—contributed by AIR members—were used to create a draft typology of IR work tasks. The collected tasks were shared with AIR members in a survey format to determine the relevance of the tasks and the frequency with which the tasks are done, and to identify who does the work entailed with the tasks. The first in-depth exploration of the data from this study focused on the tasks relevant to the work of senior IR and senior institutional effectiveness (IE) leaders.

AIR partnered with the National Association of System Heads (NASH) to conduct research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to examine public system/campus roles in institutional research. NASH coordinated the project and AIR assisted with the development of two surveys that addressed the organizational structure and major functions of IR offices, as well as how systems and campuses collect and exchange data. Data were collected using surveys of over 100 questions delivered electronically to the senior IR professional at 48 systems and 361 campuses in the United States.