At the SCAIR conference last week, one of the IR member asked a simple question: If institutions already file to IPEDS, why do we also have to file to the state?
I went down a rabbit hole to look into this question further. Specifically digging into Comission of Higher Educaton at state level. I started with CHEMIS system from South Carolina to find how they are different. I used deep research using Claude for my study and scanning through sources. Below is a quick summary.
IPEDS(@ipeds_nces) = aggregate institutional data (totals, averages)
CHEMIS(@SCCommHigherEd) = student-level records (individual students, individual scholarships, individual courses)
CHEMIS exists because
1. The state administers Palmetto Fellows, LIFE, HOPE, and Need-Based Grants. You can't verify individual scholarship eligibility with IPEDS aggregates.
2. State provisos like 11.15 require granular data IPEDS was never designed to capture like geo-origin of out-of-state students, athletic status to name a few.
3. The SC General Assembly asks questions about student migration, lottery fund expenditure, and retention patterns that are specific to South Carolina. Christopher Robinson and Mariana Manic(Researchers from CHEMIS mentioned this during their talk including measuring employment outcomes and how higher ed data is driving the economy of the state).
It does feel like the real burden lives at the state level where IR offices manage student-level submissions, proviso compliance, scholarship audits, and legislative data requests on top of 12 IPEDS survey components.
And every state has its own version of this.
#InstitutionalResearch #HigherEd #IPEDS
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