DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02315.v1
title: National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey, 1987 [Reformatted Files]
title: Version 1

description: The National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey (NPSAS) provides information on how postsecondary student financial aid is targeted, received, and used. A significant component of the NPSAS is the Student Loan Recipient Transcript Survey, which collected postsecondary-school transcripts for Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) recipients who were surveyed in the Student Loan Recipient Survey (SLRS, Part 4). This component provides the means to analyze basic policy issues such as relationships between educational activities and ability to cope with indebtedness, and the patterns of student loan repayment or default. The Transcript Survey data cover 11,847 students, 12,213 transcripts, and 1,412 schools and are organized into four categories, consisting of data at the student (Part 5), transcript (Part 7), term (Part 6), and course (Part 2) levels. At least one student-level and one transcript-level record exist for each sample member for whom a transcript was requested, even if the school in question reported that an individual had never attended or had withdrawn before establishing a formal record of attendance. Student-level data (Part 5) provide general information about the respondent's academic career. Each record is given a case ID code, allowing the merger of transcript data and other files, sampling weights, and data that summarize information found on transcripts from all postsecondary schools attended as well as selected items from Part 4, the Student Loan Recipient Survey data files. Transcript-level records (Part 7) contain data pertaining to the student's academic record at a single institution, including the school ID code, degree or other credentials conferred with accompanying dates, major and minor field(s) of study, and the student's cumulative grade-point average. Term records (Part 6) contain type of term (quarters, trimesters, and semesters), season of occurrence, start and end dates, grade-scale type, the number of courses corresponding to a given term, and a special flag indicating regular or transfer status for the term. Included in term type is a code that signifies credit earned via standardized tests and other life experience. Course-level data (Part 2) include records for every course reported on a transcript. The Student Loan Recipient Survey data (Part 4, Questionnaire Data) contain identifying information about the students such as sex, age, race, citizenship, residence, marital status, and current employment, as well as survey control data, a counter variable for the NPSAS transcripts, and weights. The Composite Data file (Part 1) contains information from the student transcript data in Part 5 and the student questionnaire data in Part 4. It also contains composite variables that combine information from the record abstract done at the institution and the student questionnaire. A Parent Survey (Part 3) was also conducted to collect data on the total number of children in the family, how much respondents spent on clothing, food, and books and supplies for their children, other loans taken out to pay for schooling, when the respondents started saving for their children's college expenses, and what type of savings programs they used.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Composite Data 
 DS2: Course Data 
 DS3: Parent Data 
 DS4: Questionnaire Data 
 DS5: Student Data 
 DS6: Term Data 
 DS7: Transcript Data
description: National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) Series
description: This data collection is a reformatted "PC version" of NATIONAL POSTSECONDARY STUDENT AID SURVEY, 1987 (ICPSR 9299). The names of the data files have been changed and the files are in a different order from those in ICPSR 9299. Also, there are fewer cases in Part 3, Parent Data, than in the original survey.
description: All individuals who applied for and received Guaranteed Student Loans through the GSL or the FISL program between 1976 and 1985.
description: The NPSAS-SLRS used a multistage probability sample of 11,847 individuals awarded loans through the Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) or the Federally Insured Student Loan (FISL) program, and who left postsecondary schooling during the period from 1976 to 1985. The sample was designed to include both Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) and non-HEGIS schools, including public and private two- and four-year institutions within both school types. Classification of schools was taken from the 1984-1985 HEGIS files.