Bill DeBaun, Senior Director of Data and Strategic Services
Reading time: Two minutes
A new agreement between the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) and the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) could represent a significant savings for some members who use the
StudentTracker® service to better understand students’ postsecondary outcomes.
Under the new agreement, NCAN member programs that have signed an individual StudentTracker Agreement and meet the requirements to receive StudentTracker reports can use the StudentTracker service for a reduced fee of $0.35 per record submitted, with
a minimum of $595 per file submitted. Members will continue to be billed directly by the NSC for use of the service.
These terms will be useful for member programs who have StudentTracker Agreements under the “StudentTracker for Education Organizations" (STEO) umbrella.
Usual STEO per record terms vary according to the volume of students being submitted but may be in the range of $0.70-$0.80, so this new agreement can potentially save programs a lot of money. Note that the minimum $595 fee would account for the first
1,700 students a program searches for in a submission.
Member programs with STEO agreements who want to make use of the discounted record fee should email StudentTracker Services at stservices@studentclearinghouse.org before their next file submission.
Notably, many NCAN member programs probably have their agreements under the “StudentTracker for Outreach (STOR)” umbrella, and this new NCAN agreementdoes not represent a cost savings for these members, who should continue to use their STOR agreements as written. The
STOR agreements are structured by small, medium, and large programs that include a certain number of data file submissions and record limits annually. Programs can check
their
eligibility for STOR under the NSC’s checklist.
The biggest hurdle for NCAN members to clear for STOR eligibility will be whether they “exclusively serve one of the following populations: at-risk youth, first-generation college students, individuals with disabilities, low-income students, and/or students
from traditionally underrepresented groups.” The word “exclusively” there is important, especially for programs doing state-, community-, district-, or school-wide service who may also serve students not in one of the aforementioned categories.
Similarly, NCAN members accessing their NSC data through the StudentTracker for High Schools service should continue to use those agreements as written.
The STEO agreement will be the one that members who do not qualify for STOR and who are not high schools will fall into.
The NSC’s website notes, “StudentTracker® is the only nationwide source of college enrollment and degree data. Nearly 3,600 colleges and universities — enrolling over 97% of all students in public and private U.S. institutions — regularly provide enrollment
and graduation data to the Clearinghouse. Through StudentTracker, you can query our participating institutions’ student data to perform all types of educational research and analyses — quickly, easily, and affordably.”
Have questions or concerns about using NSC data in general or in making use of this new agreement? Reach out to me at debaunb@ncan.org, and I would be happy to assist.
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