Impact of the 2024 GSS Institutional Eligibility Review on Counts of GSS Master’s Students

Rationale for GSS Eligibility Review

At the conclusion of the 2023 GSS data collection, it was determined that a review of institutions with six or fewer organizational units was needed. The review was undertaken as a result of institutions requesting eligibility reviews combined with the length of time since the last eligibility review. In recent cycles, an eligibility review of any specific institution was initiated when the coordinator questioned the institution’s eligibility or when an institution refused participation in the GSS.^{​GSS respondents, who respond on behalf of their schools, are called coordinators. Schools may have separate coordinators for reporting graduate students and postdocs or nonfaculty researchers (NFRs). Institutions may be split into multiple schools.} When assessing these institutions for eligibility during data collection, each year a small number (generally less than five) of institutions with fewer than five units were identified as not currently eligible for the GSS. In addition, a full review of active institutions for eligibility had not taken place since the beginning of the 2017 GSS data collection when the GSS stopped collecting data for some previously eligible fields.^{​In 2017, the fields of architecture, communications, and public administration and portions of the field of nutrition and the field of family and consumer and human sciences became ineligible. This change led to an eligibility review for institutions that reported those fields.} The criterion for review was the same as that used at the beginning of each data collection to identify new institutions to bring into the GSS.

Process for GSS Eligibility Review

At the end of the 2023 GSS data collection period, institutions with six or fewer units were identified for eligibility review before the 2024 GSS data collection period. These criteria aligned with the characteristics of institutions that were identified as not currently eligible in prior rounds. Using these criteria, 198 institutions were identified that reported a combined 600 units to the GSS for the eligibility review. Once the units were identified, the fall 2023 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Completions CIP code-level data for the 198 identified institutions were obtained to facilitate the review. Each potentially eligible program within the identified institutions was reviewed individually to classify it as research or practitioner oriented.

The review included visiting the individual institutions’ websites and identifying the programs that reported to GSS and IPEDS. Using the previously mentioned criteria, the programs’ description and coursework were reviewed to determine whether they were research oriented and thus GSS eligible. Through this review, NCSES determined that of the 198 reviewed institutions, 53 institutions were not currently eligible for GSS because at the time of review they did not offer any research-oriented, SEH programs.^{​A small number of institutions offer GSS-eligible SEH programs jointly with another GSS institution and have their students reported by the partner institutions; thus, they report only postdoctorate appointees or doctorate-holding nonfaculty researchers to the GSS. These institutions were out of the scope of this review} These institutions were removed from the GSS universe for the 2024 data collection.

Institutional Composition of the 2023 GSS

The 53 newly ineligible institutions represent 8% of all GSS institutions and the same percentage of GSS institutions reporting master’s students in 2023; yet these institutions reported less than 1% of units and graduate students (table 1). Although all institutions with six or fewer units were reviewed, more than half of the newly ineligible institutions reported only one or two units to the GSS (based on a median value of two).

Comparing the 2023 counts with and without the newly ineligible institutions shows minimal impact on the number and percentage of institutions that have high-Hispanic enrollment (four institutions, or 3%), are land-grant institutions (two institutions, or 2%), report doctoral students (five institutions, or 1%), or report postdoctoral appointees (one institution, or less than 1%). None of the newly ineligible schools reported doctorate-holding nonfaculty researchers. Five of the 53 newly ineligible institutions are historically Black colleges or universities (HBCUs), which will reduce the number of HBCUs in the 2024 GSS by 13%.

Focusing on HBCUs, of the 40 HBCUs reporting to the GSS in 2023, five were identified as ineligible for the 2024 GSS. The newly ineligible HBCU institutions reported small numbers of units and students to the GSS and combined reported a total of 10 units and 240 students (table 1). In 2023, the newly ineligible institutions reported 3% of all units in HBCUs and 5% of master’s students in HBCUs; thus, the number of units at and the number of master’s students attending HBCUs are expected to decline by approximately those amounts in the 2024 GSS.

Changes in Master’s Counts in the 2023 GSS

Based on 2023 counts, the primary impact of removing ineligible institutions will likely be to counts of master’s students (figure 1 and table 1), as all 53 newly ineligible institutions reported data on master’s students. Five of these newly ineligible institutions reported data on doctoral students, and one reported data on postdocs in 2023 (table 1). For the rest of this InfoBrief, the published 2023 counts of masters’ students were compared to the 2023 counts without the newly ineligible institutions, which will provide estimates of the expected differences in 2024 data without these institutions.

Although the master’s students at the newly ineligible institutions were unevenly distributed across fields, they represent a relatively small percentage of GSS master’s students. Thus, the overall distribution of students across fields in the GSS remains relatively stable when comparing the 2023 data with and without these newly ineligible institutions (table 2). The students from these newly ineligible institutions were primarily enrolled in computer and information sciences (2,414 students, or 37%), psychology (1,662 students, or 25%), and other health (1,131 students, or 17%). These newly ineligible institutions enrolled 3% of master’s graduate students in psychology and in other health fields. Yet, in the published 2023 data, 10% of all master’s students in the GSS were enrolled in psychology; without the newly ineligible institutions, psychology would include 10% of all master’s students in the 2023 GSS.

Patterns of change in enrollment intensity and demographics follow similar patterns as those for field of study, with most overall declines less than 2% of a reported groups and distributional changes of having an absolute value less than 0.01 percentage points in overall distribution. Of the 6,587 master’s students reported by the newly ineligible institutions in 2023, 1,883 (or 29%) were enrolled part time and 4,704 (71%) were enrolled full time. This would lead to a 0.1 percentage point change in the percentage of GSS master’s students enrolled full time compared with part time (table 2). U.S. citizens and permanent residents comprised about two-thirds (4,420, or 67%) of the students attending newly ineligible institutions. Looking at the 2023 data with and without these institutions, the difference is about 1% of U.S. citizens and permanent resident master’s students overall, which leads to a 0.1 percentage point change in the overall distribution of master’s students. Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, removing the master’s students at the newly ineligible institutions may lead to an almost 2% decline in female, American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, and White master’s students overall.

Changes in GSS Trends

This section shows the impact on the 1-year (2022–23) trends using the 2022 GSS data and the 2023 GSS data with and without the newly ineligible institutions, as a way to estimate what the impact would have been if the change was made in 2023. Looking at the trend data in this way provides insights into what changes are expected in the 2024 GSS based on the difference in frame eligibility (table 3).

The published GSS data showed a 1.9% increase in enrollment from 2022 to 2023. The GSS population would have remained relatively stable, with a less than 1% change, if the 53 newly ineligible institutions had been removed from the 2023 data.^{​As a census, in the GSS, any percent change between -1 and 1 is considered stable since the magnitude is small.} Some categories of characteristics that were stable in the published figures would have been characterized as small declines as a result of removing the newly ineligible institutions: part-time master’s students, enrollment in agricultural and veterinary sciences and in other health fields, and Hispanic or Latino master’s students. Thus, some declines may be seen in the 2024 data that are a result of removing these newly eligible institutions rather than changes in the enrollment patterns of the institutions reported in 2023 and 2024.