IPEDS STUDY
What Will It Take To Establish A 3-Year Degree At Your Institution?
The IPEDS Research Study
May 2025 Edition
Dr. Robert M. Zemsky, Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, Co-Founder College-in-3 Exchange
The College-in-3 IPEDS Research Exercise focuses on participation as reflected in the data of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). With support from Arnold Ventures, we developed a limited set of metrics to answer basic questions about the scope and most importantly the success and likely sustaining power of our College-in-3 Project. Those research questions include:
- How do College-in-3 Exchange member institutions compare to the universe of U.S. colleges and universities in terms of size of student body, race and ethnicity of students, Pell grants and student loans, and mean undergraduate retention rates? The research paper authored by Bob Zemsky “Who is Joining College-in-3” addresses these questions for the first College-in-3 50 member institutions.
- How many institutions will launch College-in-3 programs through December 31, 2025? How many institutions plan to launch 3-year programs by December 31, 2026?
- How many students will be enrolled in these programs?
- How do the demographic profiles of students in these programs differ from the demographic profile of the student body of the host institution?
- How do the curricular foci of College-in-3 programs differ from each another or from the curricular foci of their host institutions?
- What role might financial aid play in shaping enrollments and patterns of retention? How many students does each program retain first to second year?
The answers to these inquiries will necessarily be numeric. IPEDS provides a set of variables/measures in standard form. By comparing the counts associated with each variable across institutions, or even within a single institution, we can measure differences—for example, by gender, race/ethnicity, retention, utilization of financial aid.
These differences become the basic metrics to be presented in College-in-3 reports.
The next report will analyze the data (percentages and percentage differences) generated by the first group of institutions to launch College-in-3 programs. We will augment this first set of reports as the College-in-3 membership grows: 50 plus members now, up to 100 members by December 2025, and up to 200 members by December 2026.
It is important to understand that the Project’s IPEDS Research Exercise is not about assessment—and only in a very limited sense about educational outcomes. The Research Exercise does not analyze student opinion, or faculty opinion, or the reactions of those officials responsible for college and university accreditation or the governmental officials responsible for higher education policies and practices.