{"id":1527,"date":"2017-12-06T15:27:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T15:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2023-09-13T15:41:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T15:41:12","slug":"national-student-clearinghouse-degree-title-categories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/?p=1527","title":{"rendered":"National Student Clearinghouse: Degree Title Categories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I enjoy working with National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) return data, but the differences between the way schools report Degree Titles can be frustrating.\u00a0 For example, here\u2019s just a <em>few<\/em> of the ways \u201cjuris doctor\u201d can appear:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/?attachment_id=1530\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1530\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1530 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/a-few-ways-JD-can-appear-300x193.jpg\" alt=\"a few ways JD can appear\" width=\"300\" height=\"193\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/a-few-ways-JD-can-appear-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/a-few-ways-JD-can-appear-768x494.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/a-few-ways-JD-can-appear.jpg 904w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve worked on a few projects where it was necessary to work with the type of degree that was earned.\u00a0 For example, as part of Access &amp; Affordability discussions, it was important to examine the additional degrees that Swarthmore graduates earned after their Swarthmore graduation by student need level to determine if graduates in any particular need categories were earning certain degrees at higher\/lower rates than other need categories.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/?attachment_id=1531\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1531\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1531\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/example-data_degree-cat-by-need-cat-1024x581.jpg\" alt=\"example data_degree cat by need cat\" width=\"660\" height=\"374\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/example-data_degree-cat-by-need-cat-1024x581.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/example-data_degree-cat-by-need-cat-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/example-data_degree-cat-by-need-cat-768x436.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/example-data_degree-cat-by-need-cat.jpg 1421w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In order to do this, I first had to recode degree titles into degree categories.<\/p>\n<p>The NSC does make available some crosswalks, which can be found at <a href=\"https:\/\/nscresearchcenter.org\/workingwithourdata\/\">https:\/\/nscresearchcenter.org\/workingwithourdata\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Credential_Level_Lookup_table can be useful for some projects.\u00a0 However, my particular project required more detail than provided in the table (for example, Juris Doctors are listed as \u201cDoctoral-Professional\u201d and I needed to be able to separate out this degree), so I created my own syntax.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sharing this syntax (below) as a starting point for your own projects. This is not a comprehensive list of every single degree title that has been submitted to the NSC, so <strong>be careful to always check to see what you need to add to the syntax. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While I have found this to be rarer, there are the occasional degrees that come through without a title in any of the records for that degree.\u00a0 I\u2019ve therefore also included a bit of syntax at the top that codes those with a Graduated=\u201dY\u201d but a blank Degree Title to \u201cunknown.\u201d\u00a0 If you are choosing to work with those records differently, you can comment out that syntax.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Once you have created your new degree categories variable(s), you can select one record per person and run against your institutional data.\u00a0 <\/strong>One option is to keep, for those who have graduated, the highest degree earned.\u00a0 You can use \u201cIdentify Duplicate Cases\u201d to Define Matching Cases by ID and then Sort Within Matching Groups by\u00a0 DegreeTitleCatShort (or any other degree title category variable you\u2019ve created).\u00a0 Be sure to select Ascending or Descending based on your project and whether you want the First or Last record in each group to be Primary.<\/p>\n<p>Hope this helps you in your NSC projects!<\/p>\n<p>SPSS syntax:\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/?attachment_id=1528\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1528\">Degree Title Syntax to share v3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I enjoy working with National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) return data, but the differences between the way schools report Degree Titles can be frustrating.\u00a0 For example, here\u2019s just a few of the ways \u201cjuris doctor\u201d can appear: I\u2019ve worked on a few projects where it was necessary to work with the type of degree that was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/?p=1527\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">National Student Clearinghouse: Degree Title Categories<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,3,4,17],"tags":[31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/institutional-research\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}