OMB83 C Memo

Memorandum United States Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

National Center for Education Statistics

DATE: December 5, 2014

TO: Shelly Martinez, OMB

THROUGH: Kashka Kubzdela, NCES

FROM: Tracy Hunt-White, NCES

SUBJECT: 2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16) 16 Field Test Institutions and Enrollment Lists – addition of two data elements to NPSAS enrollment list (1850-0666 v.14)

This request is to add two data elements to the student enrollment list collection in the 2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16) field test. The NPSAS:16 Field Test Institutions and Enrollment Lists OMB package (1850-0666 v.12) was approved in July 2014, including the list of data elements being requested on the enrollment list provided by the institutions. NPSAS staff recently re-examined the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) instructions to institution for providing enrollment counts. The review uncovered differences in how NPSAS and IPEDS include students in each data collection. In IPEDS, enrollment counts, which are used for sampling in NPSAS, include dually-enrolled high school students. In NPSAS, however, students with dual enrollment are excluded except if they complete high school and then subsequently enroll in postsecondary courses during the NPSAS:16 field test year (2014-2015). Since many of the same institution staff provide data for both IPEDS and NPSAS, NCES felt it necessary to add two items to the NPSAS student enrollment list to ensure that the institutions’ staff are not inadvertently including high school students on the enrollment list for NPSAS.

The addition of the two items will allow NPSAS sampling statisticians to identify dually-enrolled high school students who are included on the enrollment lists provided by institutions. They will also allow statisticians to compare NPSAS to IPEDS student counts given that IPEDS includes dually-enrolled high school students.

Table 1. File Layout for Student Enrollment Lists – Two New Items

Student data element	Code	Max Field Length
High school graduation date (MM/DD/YYYY)		10
Student was enrolled in high school during 2014-2015	Y = Student is or was enrolled in high school between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015 N = Student was not enrolled in high school between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015 X = Unknown	1

The high school graduation date data element was included on the student enrollment list for the previous cycle of NPSAS to help identify first-time beginning students. The flag for enrollment in high school is a new item for NPSAS, but reflects the information institutions need to use to filter their enrollment records to exclude dual enrollment students.

The inclusion of these two items in the enrollment list provide for NPSAS is not expected to affect the estimated response burden, and does not change the cost to the federal government for conducting this study.

The NPSAS:16 Field Test Institution Registration Page with needed enrollment elements is scheduled to be sent to institutions by mid December 2014, in preparation for collection of enrollment lists in January 2015.