Strategies in Support of High-Quality Data:27 Organizations Offer Senate Committee Recommendations to Improve Postsecondary Data
Published Aug 10, 2015
Washington, D.C. April 27, 2015 – Last week, the Postsecondary Data Collaborative (PostsecData) submitted a letter in response to the U. S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions' (HELP) white paper on consumer information. The PostsecData Collaborative – a coalition of organizations committed to the use of high-quality postsecondary data to improve student outcomes – prepared a letter that seeks to assist the Committee as it works to adopt and improve higher education policies.
In this letter, 27 organizations focused on student success offered these seven recommendations to the Committee:
- Overturn the ban and create a student unit record system at the federal level, including protocols for ensuring the privacy and security of student data;
- Leverage existing federal data and publicly report aggregate results;
- In addition to consumer information and federal policymaking, recognize state policymaking, institutional policy and practice, and research as core purposes for federal postsecondary data;
- Maintain focus on consumer use and awareness, and ensure the inclusion of critical data elements used by students and other stakeholders;
- Improve specifications of IPEDS Outcome Measures now as an interim step toward better information on student completions in federal data;
- Continue to require mandatory participation in federal data collections, but allow third-party, voluntary collections to continue; and
- Maintain the Department of Education as a steward of federal data with the flexibility to develop metrics to inform decisions, while promoting transparency and public access to data.
Signatories to Postsecondary Data Collaborative letter to the HELP Committee
Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE)
Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT)
Association for Institutional Research (AIR)
California Competes
The Campaign for College Opportunity
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Complete College America
Consumer Action
Council for Opportunity in Education (COE)
The Education Trust
Equal Justice Works
Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)
National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc)
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS)
National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
New America
Scholarship America
Southern Education Foundation (SEF)
State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO)
The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS)
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Veterans Education Success
Workforce Data Quality Campaign (WDQC)
Young Invincibles
Led by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), the letter's signatories, believe that when high-quality data are accessible and appropriately protected, they can be used to inform consumer choice, policymaking, and institutional practice to improve student outcomes, especially for students from underserved groups.
To learn more about the Postsecondary Data Collaborative, please visit www.ihep.org/postsecdata or sign up for the weekly PostsecData newsletter.
