Conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) at the U.S. Department of Education, BPS:20/22 is the first follow-up of a cohort of first-time beginning students (FTBs) originally identified during the 2019–20 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20) and covers 3 years of students’ experiences, from their first year of postsecondary education in the 2019–20 academic year through the 2021–22 academic year. The BPS:20/22 data include approximately 22,320 total respondents, representing the approximately 3.3 million undergraduates who were first-time postsecondary students enrolled in the 2019–20 academic year. The data are nationally representative of FTBs from the 2019–20 academic year and can be used to create state-representative estimates for FTB students who began at institutions in 7 states (California, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas).
Data are publicly available for analysis in Datalab:
https://nces.ed.gov/datalab/index.aspx.
Documentation for the study can be downloaded via PDF: https://ies.ed.gov/sites/default/files/nces/document/2026/03/2026013.pdf
A full BPS:20/22 restricted-use dataset containing the micro-level data files for the 2020/22 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:20/22) is forthcoming.
Under law, public use data collected and distributed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) may be used only for statistical purposes. Any effort to determine the identity of any reported case by public-use data users is prohibited by law. Violations are subject to Class E felony charges of a fine up to $250,000 and/or a prison term up to 5 years. NCES does all it can to assure that the identity of data subjects cannot be disclosed. All direct identifiers, as well as any characteristics that might lead to identification, are omitted or modified in the dataset to protect the true characteristics of individual cases. Any intentional identification or disclosure of a person or institution violates the assurances of confidentiality given to the providers of the information. Therefore, users shall:
- Use the data in any dataset for statistical purposes only.
- Make no use of the identity of any person or institution discovered inadvertently, and advise NCES of any such discovery.
- Not link any dataset with individually identifiable data from other NCES or non-NCES datasets.
| Metadata | Description |
|---|---|
| Data classifications | |
| Data weighted |
Yes
|
| Data part of a series |
Yes
|
| Data access | Public-use |