The following request comes from NACEP. They are working to ensure that clean national data is available for dual enrollment. We have an opportunity as dual enrollment practitioners to weigh in. It will help policy makers make better decisions. As a region, here is how we can participate:
The Problem: There is no accurate, standardized, or timely national count of the number of students participating in programs that allow high school students early access to college like concurrent enrollment, dual enrollment, dual credit, early college, etc. (collectively called dual enrollment by IPEDS). Current IPEDS data only has a proxy for dual enrollment based on age and does not allow disaggregation by race/ethnicity or gender. This means we lack precise dual enrollment data at the federal level and have no national demographic information about dual enrollment students.
The Solution: Help advocate for changes to IPEDS data collection by adding your voice to those providing public comment. Please help NACEP take a stand for good data by submitting public comment to IPEDS by August 6th, 2021. We have included sample correspondence below.
Impact on the Field: The lack of accurate and standardized data on the number of dual enrollment students and the basic demographic make-up of the participants makes it impossible to determine what is happening in the field as a whole. This has left the field reliant on piecing together publicly available state reporting which varies in quality, timing and timeliness, language, and availability. Further, the lack of accurate and standardized national data on dually enrolled students makes it impossible to answer simple questions like how many students in the US participate, their key demographic characteristics, and the extent of equity gaps by race/ethnicity and gender. The lack of accurate, standardized, and timely national participation data hinders serious national conversations about these programs as a key bridge to college success for students and particularly students traditionally underrepresented in postsecondary education.
The Context: The US Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is a key source for data and trends for postsecondary education in the United States. Currently, dual enrolled participant numbers are approximated by looking at the number of students enrolled under the age of 18. This is an imperfect measure which could lead to over or underestimates of participation and further muddies the national data on how many and what type of students participate in these programs. Further, an NPEC paper that examined how IPEDS measures dual enrolled students identified several issues and concerns with how IPEDS asks institutions to report high school students taking college courses.
IPEDS is continually changing to better collect more useful data on colleges and their students. Ideas for changes and improvements are discussed in Technical Review Panels (TRP), where the Department of Education convenes IPEDS stakeholders and other experts to make recommendations. A recent Technical Panel Review provided a variety of recommendations for improving the information collected to help capture dual enrollment student data in the US. There are multiple thoughtful, impactful recommendations that would vastly improve our national understanding of the field. The recommendations fall into five categories: Institutional Characteristics, Enrollment, Finance, Human Resources, and Student Outcomes. You can read all the recommendations here.
Do My Comments Matter? Yes! And we hope you will help us flood the public comment inbox with voices from the field. You do the work every day to provide this critical program to students across the nation your work and your students should be counted! There have been gains for dual enrollment from past TRP recommendations. TRP #55 recommendations created a common definition for dual enrollment and removed AP and IB from being included in postsecondary enrollment data.
NACEP’s Recommendations: NACEP will be providing our comments on TRP #63 recommendations and we strongly encourage you to reach out and do the same. NACEP supports nearly all the recommendations brought forth from the TRP. However, we are mindful that increased reporting requirements create an additional burden on institutions, so we are keeping our ask simple and impactful:
IPEDS should develop and deploy appropriate means to count dual enrollment students disaggregated by race/ethnicity and gender so that data gathered from colleges and universities includes a count and the basic characteristics of this important and growing sector of postsecondary education enrollment. We further support the collection of student completion data in dual enrollment programs.
Help Us Help the Field: Send your comments to ipedsTR...@rti.org by August 6th. We have included sample language below that you may copy and paste into your email.
Your voice matters, please use it to improve national data on dual enrollment!
Please reach out with any questions.
Thanks for all you do for students and for NACEP!
-----
Send to: ipedsTR...@rti.org
By: August 6th 2021
Sample language:
Amy Barmer
IPEDS Technical Review Panel
Task Leader at RTI International
701 13th St NW #750
Washington, DC 20005
ipedsTR...@rti.org
Dear Ms. Barmer,
I work with dual enrollment on a daily basis. These programs are prevalent, popular, and impactful. They have become a significant portion of undergraduate enrollment in the nation, in my state, and at my institution.
Dual enrollment provides significant benefits to students. National and state research studies have consistently shown that these programs improve rates of college access and completion, particularly for low-income students, students of color, first-generation college students, and other populations of students who are under-represented in higher education.
Existing national data sets are out of date, inconsistent, overly general, and not standardized around common language and metrics. To continue to understand the impact of these programs and the students participating, we need accurate, standardized, timely national data. IPEDS has an important opportunity to vastly improve our national understanding of the field, and equity gaps within it, by making changes to the data solicited from institutions.
I support the following recommendations from the Technical Review Panel to improve how dual enrollment students are counted.
· Institutional Characteristics Survey: At a minimum, I agree that IPEDS should ask institutions to report if they offer and accept dual enrollment credits. This will provide standardized information about course offerings and policies among colleges and universities.
· Enrollment Surveys: I strongly support TRP #55 and #63’s suggestion to add a new column to the core enrollment screen in EF and E12 to report dual enrolled students and disaggregate reporting by race/ethnicity and gender.
· Instructional Activity: I support calculating the instructional activity separately for dual enrolled students so we have a more nuanced measure of dual enrollment activity.
· Finance and Human Resource Surveys: I do not recommend changes at this time, but encourage IPEDS to further explore how to improve federal data collection on these surveys related to dual enrollment.
· Student Outcomes Survey: On the Completions Survey, I support the TRP suggestions that completions reporting should include dual enrollment and report completions entirely via dual enrollment.
Accurate and standardized data is critical to states and local districts in order to level-set comparison when considering steps to ensure equity in access and monitor equity in participation. Please consider the above statements and make the recommended adjustments to how dual enrollment data is surveyed and collected.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter!
Should you have further questions please reach out.
Sincerely,
Your Name
