DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38299.v1
title: College and Beyond II (CBII) Alumni Survey, [United States], 2021
title: Version 1

description: The purpose of College and Beyond II (CBII) is to better understand how students' undergraduate experiences in and out of the classroom relate to their long-run development. The CBII Alumni Survey provides data collected from graduates ten years after earning their bachelor's degrees. It serves as the main source of information on students' long-run development for the study series. Domains covered by the CBII Alumni Survey include arts appreciation and engagement; health and well-being; labor market participation and wealth; civic engagement; beliefs about diversity and pluralism; and democratic participation. The survey also asks about respondents' recollections of their college experiences, as well as their current family structure, social identities, educational attainment, experiences with discrimination, and political and religious identification. The survey contains scales that are widely used in various disciplines such as education, economics, political science, and psychology. The CBII Alumni Survey data can be linked to other studies in the CBII series using the ID_PERSON anonymized student identifier. These CBII studies provide information about respondents' academic backgrounds, undergraduate course transcripts, descriptions of courses taken, and postsecondary enrollment and degree attainment. Contextual data about respondents' neighborhoods can be linked to the National Neighborhood Data Archive using current zip codes, and contextual data about the colleges respondents applied to can be linked to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System using U.S. Department of Education UNITID identifiers.
description: This survey of college graduates examines the undergraduate experience and its connection to long-term outcomes. Domains covered by the survey include arts appreciation and engagement; health and well-being; labor market participation and wealth; civic engagement; beliefs about diversity and pluralism; and democratic participation. The survey also asks about respondents' recollections of their college experiences as well as their current family structure, social identities, educational attainment, experiences with discrimination, and political and religious identification.
description: The College and Beyond II Alumni Survey used a stratified random sample design. Individuals were selected to participate in the survey if they met all of the following criteria: Domestic student as an undergraduate Earned a bachelor's degree during the 2009-2010 academic year Graduated from one of seven eligible institutions. One eligible institution was selected from each postsecondary system that participated in the College and Beyond II study The eligible institutions represent a convenience sample of public colleges and universities that had robust data infrastructures and were willing to contribute data to the study. The sample is not meant to be representative of all domestic bachelor's degree recipients in the United States. In total, there were 24,529 individuals in the sampling frame. This population was stratified by institution, underrepresented minority status as recorded in institutional data, and bachelor's degree field. Degree field categories included Physical and Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, Other Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Business, and Other Professional Fields. Out of the 24,529 members of the sampling frame, 15,000 cases were selected for participation in the survey. Respondents self-administered the survey over the web.
description: Among the information included in the Main Data file are participant and institution identifiers, responses from the survey, occupation and labor codes, weights, derived indexes, and selected administrative variables. The survey also included the following sections: College Experiences Arts and Culture Health and Well-Being Employment and Wealth Civic Engagement and Democratic Participation Background
description: Since the College and Beyond II (CBII) study used a stratified random sample design with disproportionate allocation, sampled cases have different selection probabilities across strata. In order to account for unequal selection probabilities, help mitigate nonresponse bias, and improve the precision of the estimates, weights were computed using a three stage process. See the User Guide for more detail about the construction of the weights. Researchers recommend that users account for the sampling design in their analyses. The weighting variable (WEIGHT) and stratification variable (STRATUM) are available for each individual in the survey dataset.
description: Response Rates: The overall response rate to the survey was 19 percent.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Numerous validated and common scales are included in the survey. Examples include the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being (42-item version), Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-Short Form, Pluralistic Orientation Scale, Openness to Diversity and Challenge Scale, and the Everyday Discrimination Scale (short version). See the Questionnaire for a comprehensive listing of scales and their sources.
description: 15,000 cases were selected for participation in the survey. Within each stratum, a simple random sample without replacement was selected from the available domestic 2009-2010 college graduates. Due to the limited number of cases available, individuals who were members of underrepresented minority (URM) groups and/or who graduated from a college with a relatively small student body were selected with certainty. This corresponded to 8,947 cases. The remaining 6,053 cases were allocated proportionately to their stratum population sizes. For additional sampling information, please see the User Guide.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Main Data DS2: Participation Data
description: Individuals who earned bachelor's degrees as domestic students from seven public colleges or universities in the United States during the academic year 2009-2010.
description: web-based survey