Identifying Comparison Institutions

Higher education institutions are often concerned with how they compare to other higher education institutions. In the case of my institution, we have often compared ourselves to other Catholic institutions. The last comparison group was developed nearly ten years ago. Senior leadership has begun the discussion as to whether this is still the appropriate comparison group. In order to assist in this discussion, my office attempted to use an empirical method to determine a comparison group based on quantitative similarities.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collects information on an annual basis from all Title IV higher education institutions. The collection effort is implemented during the academic year with the inclusion of information pertaining to enrollment, financial aid, finance, graduation, and human resources. Subsequently, the institutional identifiable data....