DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37932
title: MDRC's The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trials Restricted Access File (THE-RCT RAF), United States, 2003-2024
title: Archival Version

description: The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial (THE-RCT) study aims to capitalize on existing data from postsecondary education RCTs to foster substantive and methodological scholarship and encourage teaching and learning opportunities. The cornerstone of THE-RCT is a restricted access file (RAF). The initial version contains individual-participant data from more than 25 of MDRC's higher education RCTs covering 50 institutions and over 50,000 students. The data were originally collected as part of different randomized controlled trial evaluations of a variety of higher education interventions. The data were collected for different student samples, at different times, and in different locations for each study. 

The data were collected from four data sources: 1. Baseline: Baseline student demographic data (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, age, etc.) were gathered, either via a survey administered to students upon joining the study (but prior to random assignment) or from study colleges' administrative records; 2. College Transcript: Student transcript data (e.g., enrollment, credits attempted, credits earned, GPA) were provided by the study colleges or state higher education agencies; 3. College Credential Attainment: Student credential attainment data were provided by the study colleges or state higher education agencies; 4. National Student Clearinghouse: Student enrollment and credential attainment data were provided by the National Student Clearinghouse via their StudentTracker database. This includes enrollment and credential attainment data at colleges beyond the colleges where the study took place.

The RAF contains student-level data, including baseline demographics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity), outcomes (e.g., enrollment, credits earned, credentials), an indicator of experimental group (e.g., program or control group), and study variables (e.g., a variable that allows users to link to the RCT-level database).
description: The purpose of this collection is to capitalize on existing data from postsecondary education RCTs to foster substantive and methodological scholarship and encourage teaching and learning opportunities.
description: The dataset includes a variable that indicates each student's probability of being assigned to the program group (special care needs to be taken in multi-arm trials). This variable can be used to create weights to account for differences in the probability of assignment to the program both within and between studies.
description: Response Rates: Outcome data were collected for nearly all students in each RCT. Typically, fewer than 1 percent of students who were randomly assigned were "dropped" from an RCT due to, for example, a student withdrawing their consent to collect outcome data. See PI's documentation RCT-Level Database for the number of students randomly assigned in each RCT and the number of students in the analytic sample, and see PI's Codebook for details on missing data.
description: Sampling varies by RCT, see PI document RCT-Level Database for more information.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial data
description: US college students. Smallest Geographic Unit: University Campus
description: record abstracts; on-site questionnaire; web-based surveyFor additional information on the Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial study, please visit the MDRC website.