IES Blog

Institute of Education Sciences

Revenues and Expenditures for Public Schools Rebound for Third Consecutive Year in School Year 2015–16

Revenues and expenditures per pupil on elementary and secondary education increased in school year 2015–16 (fiscal year [FY] 2016), continuing a recent upward trend in the amount of money spent on public preK–12 education. This is the third consecutive year that per pupil revenues and expenditures have increased, reversing three consecutive years of declines in spending between FY 10 and FY 13 after adjusting for inflation. The findings come from the recently released Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts: School Year 2015–16 (Fiscal Year 2016).

 

 

The national median of total revenues across all school districts was $12,953 per pupil in FY 16, reflecting an increase of 3.2 percent from FY 15, after adjusting for inflation.[1] This increase in revenues per pupil follows an increase of 2.0 percent for FY 15 and 1.6 percent for FY 14. These increases in revenues per pupil between FY 14 and FY 16 contrast with the decreases from FY 10 to FY 13. The national median of current expenditures per pupil was $10,881 in FY 16, reflecting an increase of 2.4 percent from FY 15. Current expenditures per pupil also increased in FY 15 (1.7 percent) and FY 14 (1.0 percent). These increases in median revenues and current expenditures per pupil between FY 14 and FY 16 represent a full recovery in education spending following the decreases from FY 10 to FY 13.

The school district finance data can help us understand differences in funding levels for various types of districts. For example, median current expenditures per pupil in independent charter school districts were lower than in noncharter and mixed charter/noncharter school districts in 21 out of the 25 states that were able to report finance data for independent charter school districts. Three of the 4 states where median current expenditures were higher for independent charter school districts had policies that affected charter school spending. The new School District Finance Survey (F-33) data offer researchers extensive opportunities to investigate local patterns of revenues and expenditures and how they relate to conditions for other districts across the country.

 

 

By Stephen Q. Cornman, NCES; Malia Howell, Stephen Wheeler, and Osei Ampadu, U.S. Census Bureau; and Lei Zhou, Activate Research


[1] In order to compare from one year to the next, revenues are converted to constant dollars, which adjusts figures for inflation. Inflation adjustments use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. For comparability to fiscal education data, NCES adjusts the CPI from a calendar year basis to a school fiscal year basis (July through June). See Digest of Education Statistics 2016, table 106.70, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_106.70.asp.

IPEDS Finance Data Reveal How Pension Benefits May Contribute to the Growth of Public Postsecondary Institutions’ Financial Liabilities

In the long-standing conversation of high college costs, ever wonder what public colleges and universities owe? For Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) using the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) found that 1,624[1] public institutions carried debt and total financial obligations of $451 billion in current dollars (see figure 1).

New finance data from IPEDS can now provide more insight about these obligations than was previously available.

Several common financial obligations or liabilities[2] can be found across all U.S. postsecondary institutions. A portion of an institution’s liabilities can be attributed to pension benefits and contributions (i.e., pension liabilities). Since fiscal year 2015, IPEDS collected data on these obligations as a specific part of the total debt held by public postsecondary institutions.  For example, the total amount of pension benefits and contributions that public institutions owed their employees in FY 2017 was $95 billion (see figure 1).

 



 

Before FY 2015, institutions did not have to report to NCES their pension liabilities and the total liabilities for public institutions were $304 billion in FY 2014.  However, after the change in reporting standards, the total liabilities for all public institutions jumped to $395 billion in FY 2015. This increase is greater than increases in all other fiscal years from 2012 to 2017. This finding suggests that the implementation of the new pension reporting standards may have contributed to the change in the increasing trend of total liabilities data.

Reporting Change in Context

Prior to the revised pension reporting standards, dating back to 1997, public institutions reported the difference between their annual required contribution to the pension plan(s) and the actual annual contribution (e.g., net pension obligation). The revised standards—known as Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statements 67 and 68—require institutions to report the entire unfunded pension amount (e.g., net pension liability), not just the amount of deficiency in annual payments.

Including the full current pension liability of the institution instead of the annual shortfall in pension funding of the institution resulted in large shifts in the balance sheet of many public institutions. For example, if an institution had a total of $2 million in pension liabilities, prior to 2015 this institution would not report the $2 million in net pension liabilities, just the amount below the required contribution for that year that was actually paid. Now, this institution must report the full $2 million in net pension liabilities, even if the annual required contribution had been paid in full. This revision of the financial reporting standards resulted in increased transparency and accuracy of the total amount of liabilities reported by institutions.

Additional IPEDS Resources

NCES encourages educational researchers to use IPEDS data—a primary source on U.S. colleges, universities, and technical and vocational institutions. For more information about the IPEDS data, visit the IPEDS Survey Components page.

While finance data from the IPEDS collection may seem to be targeted for accountants and business officers, researchers interested in a postsecondary institution’s financial health can explore through expense and revenue metrics, resulting in possible data-driven, bellwether information. To learn more about an institution’s finance data, in particular its pension benefits, click here for the current finance survey materials; archived changes to the survey materials in 2015–16 (FY 2015)—such as the implementation of the new pension reporting standards; and links to Video Tutorials, FAQs, glossary definitions and other helpful resources.  

 

 By Bao Le, Aida Ali Akreyi, and Gigi Jones


[1] This total includes 735 four-year public institutions, 889 two-year public institutions, and 63 administrative public system offices (41 four-year and 22 two-year offices). Administrative system offices can report on behalf of their campuses. The four non-Title IV-eligible U.S. service academics are not included.

[2] Liabilities include long-term debts (current and noncurrent) as well as other current and noncurrent liabilities such as pensions, compensated absences, claims and judgments, etc.

Celebrating School Library Month: A Look at Library Media Centers

 

April is School Library Month, which recognizes the important role that school librarians and libraries play in K-12 education. More than 90 percent of public elementary and secondary schools have a library media center, according to the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), which collects data about school librarians and libraries. In honor of School Library Month, here are some facts and figures from the NTPS.

 

Library staff

  • Public schools employed approximately 56,000 full-time librarians and library media specialists in the 2015–16 school year, as well as an additional 17,600 part-time librarians and library media specialists.

  • Since there were more library media centers (82,300) than librarians and since some schools may employ more than one librarian, not every school with a library media center also employed a school librarian. On average, had 0.7 full-time and 0.2 part-time librarians and library media specialists.

 

Library media centers

  • In the 2015–16 school year, 91 percent of public schools had a school library media center. Overall, there were approximately 82,300 public elementary and secondary schools with a library media center.

  • The presence of school library media centers varied by the grade levels taught at schools. In the 2015–16 school year, higher percentages of primary schools (96 percent) and middle schools (95 percent) had library media centers than high schools (80 percent) or combined schools (79 percent).

  • The presence of school library media centers also varied by the type of community in which schools were located. About 88 percent of city-based schools had a library media center in the 2015–16 school year, which was lower than the percentage of schools located in suburban areas (92 percent) and rural areas (94 percent).

  • While the vast majority of public schools have a library media center, the percentage fell slightly between school years 2003–04 and 2015–16, from 94 percent to 91 percent, respectively (see Figure 1 below).

 


Figure 1. Percentage of public schools reporting the presence of a library or library media center: 2003–04 to 2015–16

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), “Public School Data File,” 2003–04, 2007–08, 2011–12, and National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), "Public School Data File,” 2015–16.


 

More information about school libraries, public libraries, and academic libraries is available through the Library Statistics Program and the NCES Fast Fact on Libraries. In addition, analysts can access these data using DataLab to conduct their own analyses of NTPS and other National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys.

 

By Maura Spiegelman

Explore Transfer Student Data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)

Transfer students who attend full time complete a degree at higher rates than those attending part time. There were 2.1 million students who transferred into a 4-year institution during the 2009-10 academic year. At public institutions, which had the majority of transfer students (1.3 million) in 2009-10, 61 percent of full-time transfers completed their degree after 8 years of entering the institution, compared to 32 percent of part-time transfers (figure 1).

 



 

While NCES data users may be more familiar with the postsecondary transfer student data in the Beginning Postsecondary Study, NCES also collects data on this topic through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) collection. IPEDS annually requires over 4,000 colleges and universities to report their transfer data starting from enrollment to completion. As defined by IPEDS, students who transfer into an institution with prior postsecondary experience–whether credit was earned or not–are considered transfer-in students. Students who leave an institution without completing their program of study and subsequently enrolled in another institution are defined as transfer-out students.

Below are some of the key data collected on student transfers through the different IPEDS survey components:

  • Fall Enrollment (EF): Transfer-in data

Collected since 2006-07, institutions report the fall census count and specific characteristics—i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, and attendance status (full and part time)—of transfer-in students.

  • Graduation Rates (GR): Transfer-out data

Collected since 1997-98, GR collects counts of students who are part of a specific first-time, full-time student cohort. Data users can calculate the transfer-out rates of first-time, full-time students by race/ethnicity and gender for each institution that reports transfer-out data. NCES requires the reporting of transfer-out data if the mission of the institution includes providing substantial preparation for students to enroll in another eligible institution without having completed a program. If it is not part of the institution’s mission, an institution has the option to report transfer-out data.

  • Outcome Measures (OM): Transfer-in and transfer-out data

Collected since 2015-16, OM collects information on entering students who are first-time students as well as non-first-time students (i.e., transfer-in students). Institutions report on the completions of transfer-in students at three points in time: at 4, 6, and 8 years. Also, any entering student who does not earn an award (i.e., certificate, associate’s degree, or bachelor’s degree), leaves the institution, and subsequently enrolls in another institution is reported as a transfer-out student. Click to learn more about OM. All institutions reporting to OM must report their transfer-out students regardless of mission.

 

NCES has been collecting IPEDS for several decades, which allows for trend analysis. Check out the IPEDS Trend Generator’s quick analysis of transfer-in students' fall enrollment. Also, the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative commissioned a 2018 paper that provides a high-level examination of the most common issues regarding U.S. postsecondary transfer students and presents suggestions on how NCES could enhance its student transfer data collection. For example, one caveat to using IPEDS transfer data is that information on where students transfer from or to is not collected. This means IPEDS data cannot be used to describe the various pathways of transfer students, such as reverse, swirling, and lateral transferring.[1]. While these nuances are important in today’s transfer research, they are out of the scope of the IPEDS collection. However, IPEDS data do provide a valuable national look at transfers and at the institutions that serve them. 

 

[1] A reverse transfer is defined as a student who transfers from a high-level institution to a low-level institution (e.g., transferring from a 4-year institution to a 2-year institution). Students who take a swirling pathway move back and forth between multiple institutions. A lateral transfer student is a student who transfers to another institution at a similar level (e.g., 4-year to 4-year or 2-year to 2-year). 

 

 

By Gigi Jones

 

 

 

Classification of Instructional Programs and the 2020 Update

How many bachelor’s degrees in computer science were awarded to women last year? What is Megatronics? What colleges and universities in Rhode Island offer degree programs in Animal Science?1

These are examples of the many questions NCES receives related to fields of postsecondary study. The ability of NCES to provide information on these topics and many related questions rests on the standardized use of the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP).                         

The CIP, a taxonomy of instructional programs, provides a classification system for the thousands of different programs offered by postsecondary institutions. Its purpose is to facilitate the organization, collection, and reporting of fields of study and program completions.

NCES uses CIP Codes in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Completion Survey to report how many degrees and certificates were awarded for each field of study. Each field is represented by a 6-digit CIP code, and classified according to 2- and 4-digit prefixes of the code. Each 6-digit CIP Code includes the following elements:  Numeric Code, Title, Description, Illustrative Example and Cross Reference. For example:

 

11.1003 Computer and Information Systems Security/Information Assurance.
A program that prepares individuals to assess the security needs of computer and network systems, recommend safeguard solutions, and manage the implementation and maintenance of security devices, systems, and procedures. Includes instruction in computer architecture, programming, and systems analysis; networking; telecommunications; cryptography; security system design; applicable law and regulations; risk assessment and policy analysis; contingency planning; user access issues; investigation techniques; and troubleshooting.

Examples: [Information Assurance], [IT Security], [Internet Security], [Network Security], [Information Systems Security]
See also: 43.0116 – Cyber/Computer Forensics and Counterterrorism

 

CIP Codes and IPEDS Completions Survey data are used by many different groups of people for many different reasons. For instance, economists use the data to study the emerging labor pools to identify people with specific training and skills. The business community uses IPEDS Completions Survey data to help recruit minority and female candidates in specialized fields, by identifying the numbers of these students who are graduating from specific institutions.  Prospective college students can use the data to look for institutions offering specific programs of postsecondary study at all levels, from certificates to doctoral degrees.

 

 

2020 CIP Update:  Call for Comments

The CIP was initiated in 1980 and has been revised four times since—in 1985, 1990, 2000, and 2010. The 2020 CIP will focus on identifying new and emerging programs of study and presenting an updated taxonomy of instructional program classifications and descriptions. A CIP code will be deleted only when there is strong evidence that it is no longer offered at any IPEDS postsecondary institutions. NCES tentatively plans to implement the CIP 2020 during the 2020–21 IPEDS collection year.

The 2020 CIP revision will be the first time that NCES has solicited comments from the general public about a planned revision. To view the 2020 CIP Federal Register Notice (FRN), please visit: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=ED-2018-IES-0126-0002.  Comments regarding the 2020 CIP were submitted on the regulations.gov website through March 27, 2019.

UPDATE: Following the public comment and revision period, the final version of CIP:2020 was posted on July 1, 2019: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/Default.aspx?y=56

 

By Michelle Coon

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1How many bachelor’s degrees in computer science were awarded to women last year? A total of 4,134 women received a bachelor’s degree in computer science for the 2016–17 academic year.

What is Megatronics? A program that prepares individuals to apply mathematical and scientific principles to the design, development and operational evaluation of computer controlled electro-mechanical systems and products with embedded electronics, sensors, and actuators; and which includes, but is not limited to, automata, robots and automation systems. Includes instruction in mechanical engineering, electronic and electrical engineering, computer and software engineering, and control engineering.

What colleges and universities in Rhode Island offer degree programs in Animal Science? Only The University of Rhode Island offers degrees in Animal Science.