DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03004.v1
title: Recent College Graduates Survey, 1989-1990: CD-ROM Version [United States]
title: Version 1

description: The Recent College Graduates (RCG) survey estimates the
 potential supply of newly qualified teachers in the United States and
 explores the immediate post-degree employment and education
 experiences of individuals obtaining bachelor's or master's degrees
 from American colleges and universities. The RCG survey, which focuses
 heavily, but not exclusively, on those graduates qualified to teach at
 the elementary and secondary levels, is designed to meet the following
 objectives: (1) to determine how many graduates become eligible or
 qualified to teach for the first time and how many are employed as
 teachers in the year following graduation, by teaching field, (2) to
 examine the relationship between courses taken, student achievement,
 and occupational outcomes, and (3) to monitor unemployment rates and
 average salaries of graduates by field of study. The RCG survey
 collects information on education and employment of all graduates
 (date of graduation, field of study, whether newly qualified to teach,
 further enrollment, financial aid, employment status, and teacher
 employment characteristics) as well as standard demographic
 characteristics such as earnings, age, marital status, sex, and
 race/ethnicity. The 1989-1990 survey (called RCG-91 because the data
 were collected in 1991) contains four data files. Part 1 contains
 variables from the main questionnaire and includes information on type
 of degree received, teaching eligibility, certification, salary, and
 whether the respondent was unemployed. Also included are transcripts
 for sampled bachelor degree recipients. Part 2 contains verbatim
 comments from graduates regarding fields of study, occupation, and
 parents' occupations. Replicate weights are contained in Part 3, and
imputation flags are found in Part 4.
description: A two-stage stratified sampling approach was employed. The
 first stage consisted of drawing a sample of bachelor's and master's
 degree-granting institutions from Higher Education General Information
 Survey (HEGIS)/Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
 completions files. Institutions were stratified by control (public or
 private), by region, and by the proportion of degrees awarded in the
 field of education (over or under a specified number). Within each of
 these strata, institutions were selected according to size (size being
 measured by the sum of bachelor's and master's degrees awarded that
 year). The second stage consisted of the selection of a core sample of
 graduates (bachelor's and master's degree recipients) who received
 their degrees from the sampled institutions during the 1989-1990
 academic year. Sampling rates of graduates differed by major field of
 study. The sample for 1989-1990 consisted of 400 institutions and
 18,000 graduates. Institutions were additionally stratified by
 Traditionally Black Institutions (TBIs) versus non-TBIs, and nursing
 and bilingual education (Teaching English as a Second Language, TESL)
 majors were oversampled. Graduates were stratified by degree,
 bilingual education or TESL major, computer science, education,
 letters, math, physical science, nursing, foreign languages, and all
other majors. Data are representative at the national level.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Questionnaire Data
DS2: Verbatim Responses
DS3: Replicate Weights
DS4: Imputation Flags
description: Students within one year of having attained a bachelor's
or a master's degree from an American college or university.
description: (1) These data were taken from the CD-ROM "1991 Survey
 of Recent College Graduates, Public Release File." Information
 regarding changes to this public use version of the data can be found
 in the Public Use Addendum Information section of the user's manual.
 (3) The codebook and user's manual are provided as Portable Document
 Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems
 Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as
 the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the
Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Website.