The NCES Proposal on Student Data Collection: Two Viewpoints

The National Center for Education Statistics is considering a major change in how student information will be collected. Rather than gathering only aggregate data on enrollments, graduation rates, and similar statistics, the proposal instead would collect the individual student records from which these aggregations are derived. Such a change would allow NCES statistics to account for the growing number of students who attend more than one college, often in multiple systems and multiple states. On the other hand, the proposal raises important privacy, security, and technical concerns. This session features two experts on the NCES proposal, who will discuss the pros and cons from their own differing viewpoints.