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Thank you for joining me today for another episode of Data Stakes, where I have conversations with professionals who work directly in the institutional research or effectiveness field, or are data adjacent in their role in higher education. Today's conversation will focus on something every campus needs: benchmarking data. My guest today is Michelle Taylor, Senior Research Analyst at the National Community College Benchmarking Institute. And I'm very proud to share that both of my previous institutions were members of their National Community College benchmark project. Michelle, thank you for sharing your time to tell our listeners about the Institute and the NCCBP. Now we might have some listeners who are unfamiliar with the history of the project, why it was started, who led it in the early days, how many members. Can you share more details with us?
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Sure. The National Community College Benchmarking Project started from an institutional research office at a two-year institution, Johnson County Community College, and we are still hosted by that institution, and we're very grateful for that. It started back in 2004 when our founder, Jeff Seibert, basically just saw a need for two-year institutions to have access to benchmarking data against themselves. there are lots of different sources of benchmarking data, at least today, not so much back in 2004. And he worked with two-year institution experts across the country in developing the different benchmarks, and we still use the majority of what he developed back in 2004 today, and it it always amazes me how relevant the data is that he picked a benchmark is still the same data that's relevant to two year institutions today. It's lasted more than 20 years. He was really he had a lot of foresight. He was recognized by the association of institutional research. He was awarded the John Steckline Distinguished Member Award back in 2015, I believe. I don't have the exact year it was for all of the work that he did in leading the way for institutional research and using benchmarking data throughout the country.
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Yes. And just on a personal note, Dr. Siebert was someone that my institution sent to visit when I first started my role. And he couldn't have been more supportive, providing me with access to his staff, documents and reports that he encouraged me to create my own after. It was really a significant moment at the at the beginning of my career when I felt really very shaky in what I was doing.
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I say and I was very fortunate that even though he had retired, by the time I started working at the benchmarking institute, he was still consulting with us. So we got to have lots of conversations as I was learning the benchmarking project myself about the why he selected the benchmarks he did and and how to interpret them a and those type of things. So I I still there's days that I wish I could still reach out and talk to him and ask those questions, although he he's no longer with us.
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Yeah. So Michelle, who is the benchmarking project a good fit for?
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really it's a good fit for any two year institution. That's who we focus on, that's who we were developed for. we work with anybody from large institutions that have numerous people in their institutional research office able to work on projects like this to new small institutions. there was one that just came in last year. They have no dedicated institutional research people. just a combination of their dean of or their vice president of academic affairs and a couple other folks at their institution wanted to become more data informed and making their decisions and they They jumped in and were able to find the different data and participate and they did a great job. One of the unique things I think about our project is you provide the data that you want to be benchmarked on. We have a whole host of things that they can benchmark themselves on, but you're able to select what you want, what data you want to provide and what benchmarks you want to get back. So you really can tailor it to your institution. And that's why I think it's really relevant for the majority of to your institutions, even if you are very small and don't even have dedicated data people, you know, that type of thing.
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Yes, totally agree. You know that at both of my institutions I was a one woman show and I always appreciated the flexibility that you're referring to, the ability to only submit the information that we really needed on the years where I was really swamped with tasks and then abilities in other years to contribute more benchmarks. So it is. It's really a great fit for everyone. And if you listener, if you're at a small institution, please do not think this would not be a good fit for you. I think that their flexibility makes it an even better fit for small IR offices. So
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And I'll just add, if you look at our history, we've worked with over five hundred different two-year institutions across our twenty plus year time span. So lots of times I'll have somebody reach out about the benchmarking project and their institution actually had been in historically and just as personnel people have changed, there's just no awareness. So I will say also if you're interested in it, reach out because your institution might have historically participated and we still have 20 years worth of data in our database. And if you participated, you have access to it.
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Right. So you told me in an earlier conversation that around ninety-five percent of your current membership complete the traditional metrics module. So can you talk
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Yes.
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about the metrics involved and why it's so frequently selected for participation?
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Great question. Our traditional module is what we started out with back in 2004. And it continues to be our flagship module or project that most people participate in. the reason that I think most people participate in it is it was designed to be comprehensive and touch on all of the different parts of a two-year institution. at least the credit portion of it. So we have the student outcome measures, the student success measures that everybody is being held held accountable to this to these days. However, we go beyond that. I always like to say we measure the inputs so you can impact the outputs or the student success measures, right? So in addition to you know completion and transfer rates, we do non-traditional ways of measuring student outcome. So not just the iPads defined student cohort. We look at everybody a two-year institution serves in an academic year, you know, regardless if they're first time, all of that type of stuff. and what their outcomes are. We look at we gather data from external sources, so student engagement data from either Ruffalo no Levitz or SESI, the summary scores. We follow students as they go through their college experience. So, you know, overall core academics, so looking at their math and their English, developmental education, Things like early momentum metrics, even a deep dive into concurrent high school programming, because so many kids are doing dual credit these days and bringing those classes with them. But also things like HR. So looking at staffing, part-time, full-time instructors, retirements, departures. we get a cost per credit hour of delivering the academic side of that. And we're now doing a little bit into more detailed specific. We have a module that goes into measuring that at the discipline level, which is a proxy for program level. And we've introduced a little bit of that into the traditional module. Student services staffing, just how in some key areas in student services like staffing and advising and testing, just how theyre staffed, how that impacts student outcomes, and then a bunch of financial Data as well. So all of that is incorporated in here. So you can start to look at how things are like staffing and advising impact early momentum metrics, and early momentum metrics impact student outcomes, right? So you start to see those relationships in the data that you can use to make decisions and take actions to actually input to to improve those outcomes.
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Right. So and you're right, it is. It is a comprehensive view. You know, if you look at your retention and you see your retention is slipping, you can then easily go to the DFW metrics and see if there are changes there and the early momentum. So you're right, it is very comprehensive, and it is one that we always did at both of my institutions. So let's talk about a few of the other modules available for members that touch on some of the current. Hot topics in higher education today. So, first up, tell me more about your enrollment management module.
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Yes, so the enrollment management model module is really important today, especially as we've hit that enrollment cliff and everybody's, you know, vying for the same students out there or less students out there. So it really has two components to it. There's what we call the enrollment tracking a portion of it. And what this is, it is it's a real-time data collection and reporting where we start asking you to collect your data. it's 140 days out from census date in the fall, it's a hundred days out in the spring from your census date. And at each point in time, you go in and you report your both headcount and your student credit hours 140 days out from census for both this year and last year, because we're going to use that data to tell you if you're up or down compared to the same time period last year. this is something most institutions probably are already doing. not all, as I talk to different institutions. Some aren't even at this kind of level. but it's intended to help you answer the next question. Yes, we're up five percent compared to the same time period last year. Well, how does that compare to everybody else? So it would give you a national comparison. so you can say nationally, you know, everybody's up you know, two percent, we're up five percent, it looks like we're doing good, but you also can add a peer group in there. So you can go in and say, well, nationally we look really good, but our peers are up, you know, seven percent. So yes, we're ahead of the national average, we're a little bit behind our peers, and you have that data in real time, so you can go out and have the opportunity to try to impact those before the start of your semester. the second part of that Which we introduced through a student services module that we have since tailored now just to enrollment management, where we take a deeper dive into con to some key areas around enrollment management. Things like recruitment, financial aid, testing, just getting a few and I say five to six key benchmarks about those areas that then can help you. as you're developing your enrollment plans for the following year or the current next semester.
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Yes, really smart, really smart. And you're right, not everyone is capturing that on a daily basis or even has the ability to. So getting it up into your project is a great alternative to make up for that gap. So many community colleges are facing a need to gain a better understanding of return on investment for their institution. And the institute offers the cost and productivity project for researchers inner. interested in analyzing academic program costs. Tell me more about that module.
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Yeah, the Cost and Productivity Project, it actually has been around for 20 years plus as well. It was developed in conjunction with our traditional collection. What it does is it takes a deep dive into the academic side, and now you can do the same thing for student services and admin services, but historically it was on the academic side. Looking at the cost of instruction. Right. we use the SIP codes as a proxy for programs. Everybody wants to know their program cost, right? Well, the problem with that is when you think about an entire program, take physical therapy assistance, you know, there's probably some math and other gen ad requirements as part of that program, and the physical therapy assistants team, management, dean, department head, whoever it may be, doesn't really own that. So you're able to within our project to measure the parts that your particular area discipline is responsible for. You also get those same measurements for math and English, but it rolls up to them because they actually can make the decisions around those costs. so what you end up getting from that is a cost per credit hour of that instruction. You're able to do direct costs, so basically salaries and benefit information of the instructors being in the classroom, as well as in there now is a portion where you can put in non personnel program cost, right? Because we know if you think about some of the health sciences. all of the equipment involved in that is is very costly in comparison to other you know math english classes that don't have those. So those costs are built in there and ultimately then you get your cost per credit hour of say doing a registered nursing program, right? you get a national comparison to that. And then we have productivity measures in there where you're able then to based off of how your costs align on a national and a peer, if you have a peer group basis, and say, okay, we seem to be more expensive here. What can I do with that? Well you get to look at the distribution of full-time faculty, part-time faculty, and what we call other Which other is if you're an institutional research person and still, you know, you teach a class, or if your dean still, you know, likes to keep his hand in teaching. those type of things. So, you know, you can work with your distribution of full-time, part-time, and other faculty to try to align your costs, right? So we know that full-time faculty tend to be more expensive than a part-time adjunct. So you might want to think about using your faculty to only teach those more specialty classes, really taking advantage of their expertise, and using a part-time adjunct for an intro to type class. Or you might think about it when somebody moves out of teaching, they retire, move back into the workforce, whatever it may be, how you want to backfill that position. It's not intended to say you have too many instructors, right? You know, you need to to make those type of adjustments. It's really helping you use your resources more smartly. The other thing that comes from it is your student-faculty ratio, which is a proxy for class size. So if your costs are high. Higher than the average, and you want to try to bring those back into a line, instead of offering four sections of a particular course, maybe only offer three, right? So you're able to make smarter decisions with your resource. So it's really a resource allocation tool and helping you understand what the costs are and then helping you manage those costs. And then I'm super excited. Last year we were able to pull in external labor market data. We use ONET as our source for national and state data. And then we actually went through and pulled in service area data from each of the state resources that we were able to find. And tie in for the specific SIP codes, what occupations fall underneath those. And then use projections for both growth, the percentage growth, and the number of jobs, wage information, what is entry level wage information, what is average, and then typical education levels for those. So those are now mapped to the different zip codes. So you're able to see how. the cost align and then underneath those what does the outlook the jobs growth l the labor market tells you about those so you can use those to make programming decisions and curriculum decisions within each of those different programs. So we try to bring in as much external data as we are able to to incorporate in with our benchmarking to help our members use the benchmarking data to make decisions at their institutions.
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That's what it's all about. So let's talk about a type of analysis that some campuses are struggling with because of small staffing or maybe difficulties that it occur when trying to integrate internal and external data, exactly what you're doing with the cost and productivity project. And but this is understanding the value of a certificate and/or degree in relation to wages earned after graduation. So the institute offers a workforce training and non-credit education module. Who is choosing to participate in this type of data collection and why? What does it offer them?
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so our workforce module is both credit career technical education as well as non-credit workforce. and we're trying to measure the different aspects of delivering the workforce education as well as then the outcomes to it. Now outcomes we can successfully or two institutions can successfully give us information about degrees and certificates. We also have what I still call aspirational benchmarking in there, wanting to get information beyond the institution. Lots of people come and take their classes, their CDL, their real estate, information and then they go take their licensing through the state or some other type of entity. And some states have great resources to be able to get that, some do not. But our goal is to measure that career technical education both in terms of the comparison of delivering it through credit and not credit because some institutions people are sitting in those very same classes taking the same courses and some are doing it for credit and non-credit. Others it it's completely separate. We know that it's it's really there's no standardized way in the non-credit world or the workforce world to deliver on this type of education. so we're trying to give the different measurements for colleges to understand the cost of doing that as well as the involvement of students in their community and the success successful outcomes of those students. So
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This is really important. I can tell you there was always a little bit of panic every time the federal leaders at iPeds would start to talk about a non-credit data submission because your data is housed in so many systems or maybe even still just on paper. It's it's very hard to pull all of those strings together. So let's go ahead. Yeah.
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Yeah, there there is no standardized way right now for people to measure their non credits. So we're trying to provide that and we're trying to align it with what they do measure on the credit side. So they do have those types of comparisons.
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Yes. So let's end by telling listeners where they can meet you at either at fall or upcoming spring events and why they should start planning now to attend the 2027 benchmarking conference on June eighth through the tenth, twenty twenty-seven.
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So, first of all, if you're interested, go out to our website. It is nccbp.org. It gives you kind of a comprehensive view of all of the different benchmarks that we do. There's actually a map out there that kind of shows participation so you can see if your institution has historically participated in the project. And then we always have webinars available for you to participate in. So there's a button there. in terms of seeing us, we are out and about a lot. upcoming, we are going to be at CATYC. I think I said that right. I get the the initials
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Okay. You did.
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a little mixed up. that's coming up in the next couple of weeks in St. Louis. We're gonna be at Southern Air and Little Rock in October. We're also going to be at in NCWE, the National Council for Workforce Education, which looks at both the credit and the non-credit side of delivering workforce education. That is also in October in California, Palm, Palm Springs, California. we're gonna be presenting at the SAC COC conference, our annual meeting in December. And then we do the spring conferences, we try to be at Innovations, the National Air Forum, AACC, I don't know for sure what all we're gonna be at. Those submissions are still pending. but then as Deb Debbie said, we host our own conference in the Kansas City area, so it's right in the middle of the country. So hopefully it's easy for everybody to get in. We host that in June here at Johnson County Community College. it is for both users of our data as well as people just wanting to learn more about benchmarking data. So don't feel like you have to be a member of our project to come, it's not intended for that. That we have all sorts of type of people that attend from institutional research people to student services. We had several presidents attend. So it's it's designed for a range of people. It's mainly our members or others that are talking about using data, benchmarking data, and other data on their campuses to make decisions. So it really shows you the action side of it. you know what you can take this data, take the data and do with it at your institution. So I've been told it's a a great learning opportunity. They get lots of hands-on practical things our our attendees can use to take back and apply at their institutions. So we would love to have you be a part
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Yes. Plus you can
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of it.
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you can create great relationships with people that will respond to your email when you ask them questions. I know that from personal experience that it is a nice it is a nice conference where you have the opportunity to, I think, to get to know people better than when you're at some of the larger national events.
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And it is just for two year institutions, which there's not a lot of conferences that just focus on the two year folks for you to be able to connect with them.
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Yes, so true. So, Michelle, I've known you for a long time, and it's always so great to sit down and learn more about the National Community College benchmarking project. Thank you again for spending time with me today. You're always so enthusiastic
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Thank you for having me.
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about data. and how it can be used to create meaningful analytics that help community colleges meet accreditation standards and demonstrate the value of a college education. And to our listeners, Thanks for joining us for another episode of Data Stakes. Data Stakes is sponsored by the Data Analytics Alliance for Higher Education. You can visit our website to learn more about our upcoming quarterly meeting. If you have any questions about today's conversation, don't hesitate to reach out to me at dephelps at data telegent.ai.
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Thank you for joining me today for another episode of Data Stakes, where I have conversations with professionals who work directly in the institutional research or effectiveness field, or are data adjacent in their role in higher education. Today's conversation will focus on something every campus needs: benchmarking data. My guest today is Michelle Taylor, Senior Research Analyst at the National Community College Benchmarking Institute. And I'm very proud to share that both of my previous institutions were members of their National Community College benchmark project. Michelle, thank you for sharing your time to tell our listeners about the Institute and the NCCBP. Now we might have some listeners who are unfamiliar with the history of the project, why it was started, who led it in the early days, how many members. Can you share more details with us?
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Sure. The National Community College Benchmarking Project started from an institutional research office at a two-year institution, Johnson County Community College, and we are still hosted by that institution, and we're very grateful for that. It started back in 2004 when our founder, Jeff Seibert, basically just saw a need for two-year institutions to have access to benchmarking data against themselves. there are lots of different sources of benchmarking data, at least today, not so much back in 2004. And he worked with two-year institution experts across the country in developing the different benchmarks, and we still use the majority of what he developed back in 2004 today, and it it always amazes me how relevant the data is that he picked a benchmark is still the same data that's relevant to two year institutions today. It's lasted more than 20 years. He was really he had a lot of foresight. He was recognized by the association of institutional research. He was awarded the John Steckline Distinguished Member Award back in 2015, I believe. I don't have the exact year it was for all of the work that he did in leading the way for institutional research and using benchmarking data throughout the country.
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Yes. And just on a personal note, Dr. Siebert was someone that my institution sent to visit when I first started my role. And he couldn't have been more supportive, providing me with access to his staff, documents and reports that he encouraged me to create my own after. It was really a significant moment at the at the beginning of my career when I felt really very shaky in what I was doing.
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I say and I was very fortunate that even though he had retired, by the time I started working at the benchmarking institute, he was still consulting with us. So we got to have lots of conversations as I was learning the benchmarking project myself about the why he selected the benchmarks he did and and how to interpret them a and those type of things. So I I still there's days that I wish I could still reach out and talk to him and ask those questions, although he he's no longer with us.
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Yeah. So Michelle, who is the benchmarking project a good fit for?
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really it's a good fit for any two year institution. That's who we focus on, that's who we were developed for. we work with anybody from large institutions that have numerous people in their institutional research office able to work on projects like this to new small institutions. there was one that just came in last year. They have no dedicated institutional research people. just a combination of their dean of or their vice president of academic affairs and a couple other folks at their institution wanted to become more data informed and making their decisions and they They jumped in and were able to find the different data and participate and they did a great job. One of the unique things I think about our project is you provide the data that you want to be benchmarked on. We have a whole host of things that they can benchmark themselves on, but you're able to select what you want, what data you want to provide and what benchmarks you want to get back. So you really can tailor it to your institution. And that's why I think it's really relevant for the majority of to your institutions, even if you are very small and don't even have dedicated data people, you know, that type of thing.
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Yes, totally agree. You know that at both of my institutions I was a one woman show and I always appreciated the flexibility that you're referring to, the ability to only submit the information that we really needed on the years where I was really swamped with tasks and then abilities in other years to contribute more benchmarks. So it is. It's really a great fit for everyone. And if you listener, if you're at a small institution, please do not think this would not be a good fit for you. I think that their flexibility makes it an even better fit for small IR offices. So
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And I'll just add, if you look at our history, we've worked with over five hundred different two-year institutions across our twenty plus year time span. So lots of times I'll have somebody reach out about the benchmarking project and their institution actually had been in historically and just as personnel people have changed, there's just no awareness. So I will say also if you're interested in it, reach out because your institution might have historically participated and we still have 20 years worth of data in our database. And if you participated, you have access to it.
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Right. So you told me in an earlier conversation that around ninety-five percent of your current membership complete the traditional metrics module. So can you talk
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Yes.
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about the metrics involved and why it's so frequently selected for participation?
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Great question. Our traditional module is what we started out with back in 2004. And it continues to be our flagship module or project that most people participate in. the reason that I think most people participate in it is it was designed to be comprehensive and touch on all of the different parts of a two-year institution. at least the credit portion of it. So we have the student outcome measures, the student success measures that everybody is being held held accountable to this to these days. However, we go beyond that. I always like to say we measure the inputs so you can impact the outputs or the student success measures, right? So in addition to you know completion and transfer rates, we do non-traditional ways of measuring student outcome. So not just the iPads defined student cohort. We look at everybody a two-year institution serves in an academic year, you know, regardless if they're first time, all of that type of stuff. and what their outcomes are. We look at we gather data from external sources, so student engagement data from either Ruffalo no Levitz or SESI, the summary scores. We follow students as they go through their college experience. So, you know, overall core academics, so looking at their math and their English, developmental education, Things like early momentum metrics, even a deep dive into concurrent high school programming, because so many kids are doing dual credit these days and bringing those classes with them. But also things like HR. So looking at staffing, part-time, full-time instructors, retirements, departures. we get a cost per credit hour of delivering the academic side of that. And we're now doing a little bit into more detailed specific. We have a module that goes into measuring that at the discipline level, which is a proxy for program level. And we've introduced a little bit of that into the traditional module. Student services staffing, just how in some key areas in student services like staffing and advising and testing, just how theyre staffed, how that impacts student outcomes, and then a bunch of financial Data as well. So all of that is incorporated in here. So you can start to look at how things are like staffing and advising impact early momentum metrics, and early momentum metrics impact student outcomes, right? So you start to see those relationships in the data that you can use to make decisions and take actions to actually input to to improve those outcomes.
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Right. So and you're right, it is. It is a comprehensive view. You know, if you look at your retention and you see your retention is slipping, you can then easily go to the DFW metrics and see if there are changes there and the early momentum. So you're right, it is very comprehensive, and it is one that we always did at both of my institutions. So let's talk about a few of the other modules available for members that touch on some of the current. Hot topics in higher education today. So, first up, tell me more about your enrollment management module.
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Yes, so the enrollment management model module is really important today, especially as we've hit that enrollment cliff and everybody's, you know, vying for the same students out there or less students out there. So it really has two components to it. There's what we call the enrollment tracking a portion of it. And what this is, it is it's a real-time data collection and reporting where we start asking you to collect your data. it's 140 days out from census date in the fall, it's a hundred days out in the spring from your census date. And at each point in time, you go in and you report your both headcount and your student credit hours 140 days out from census for both this year and last year, because we're going to use that data to tell you if you're up or down compared to the same time period last year. this is something most institutions probably are already doing. not all, as I talk to different institutions. Some aren't even at this kind of level. but it's intended to help you answer the next question. Yes, we're up five percent compared to the same time period last year. Well, how does that compare to everybody else? So it would give you a national comparison. so you can say nationally, you know, everybody's up you know, two percent, we're up five percent, it looks like we're doing good, but you also can add a peer group in there. So you can go in and say, well, nationally we look really good, but our peers are up, you know, seven percent. So yes, we're ahead of the national average, we're a little bit behind our peers, and you have that data in real time, so you can go out and have the opportunity to try to impact those before the start of your semester. the second part of that Which we introduced through a student services module that we have since tailored now just to enrollment management, where we take a deeper dive into con to some key areas around enrollment management. Things like recruitment, financial aid, testing, just getting a few and I say five to six key benchmarks about those areas that then can help you. as you're developing your enrollment plans for the following year or the current next semester.
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Yes, really smart, really smart. And you're right, not everyone is capturing that on a daily basis or even has the ability to. So getting it up into your project is a great alternative to make up for that gap. So many community colleges are facing a need to gain a better understanding of return on investment for their institution. And the institute offers the cost and productivity project for researchers inner. interested in analyzing academic program costs. Tell me more about that module.
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Yeah, the Cost and Productivity Project, it actually has been around for 20 years plus as well. It was developed in conjunction with our traditional collection. What it does is it takes a deep dive into the academic side, and now you can do the same thing for student services and admin services, but historically it was on the academic side. Looking at the cost of instruction. Right. we use the SIP codes as a proxy for programs. Everybody wants to know their program cost, right? Well, the problem with that is when you think about an entire program, take physical therapy assistance, you know, there's probably some math and other gen ad requirements as part of that program, and the physical therapy assistants team, management, dean, department head, whoever it may be, doesn't really own that. So you're able to within our project to measure the parts that your particular area discipline is responsible for. You also get those same measurements for math and English, but it rolls up to them because they actually can make the decisions around those costs. so what you end up getting from that is a cost per credit hour of that instruction. You're able to do direct costs, so basically salaries and benefit information of the instructors being in the classroom, as well as in there now is a portion where you can put in non personnel program cost, right? Because we know if you think about some of the health sciences. all of the equipment involved in that is is very costly in comparison to other you know math english classes that don't have those. So those costs are built in there and ultimately then you get your cost per credit hour of say doing a registered nursing program, right? you get a national comparison to that. And then we have productivity measures in there where you're able then to based off of how your costs align on a national and a peer, if you have a peer group basis, and say, okay, we seem to be more expensive here. What can I do with that? Well you get to look at the distribution of full-time faculty, part-time faculty, and what we call other Which other is if you're an institutional research person and still, you know, you teach a class, or if your dean still, you know, likes to keep his hand in teaching. those type of things. So, you know, you can work with your distribution of full-time, part-time, and other faculty to try to align your costs, right? So we know that full-time faculty tend to be more expensive than a part-time adjunct. So you might want to think about using your faculty to only teach those more specialty classes, really taking advantage of their expertise, and using a part-time adjunct for an intro to type class. Or you might think about it when somebody moves out of teaching, they retire, move back into the workforce, whatever it may be, how you want to backfill that position. It's not intended to say you have too many instructors, right? You know, you need to to make those type of adjustments. It's really helping you use your resources more smartly. The other thing that comes from it is your student-faculty ratio, which is a proxy for class size. So if your costs are high. Higher than the average, and you want to try to bring those back into a line, instead of offering four sections of a particular course, maybe only offer three, right? So you're able to make smarter decisions with your resource. So it's really a resource allocation tool and helping you understand what the costs are and then helping you manage those costs. And then I'm super excited. Last year we were able to pull in external labor market data. We use ONET as our source for national and state data. And then we actually went through and pulled in service area data from each of the state resources that we were able to find. And tie in for the specific SIP codes, what occupations fall underneath those. And then use projections for both growth, the percentage growth, and the number of jobs, wage information, what is entry level wage information, what is average, and then typical education levels for those. So those are now mapped to the different zip codes. So you're able to see how. the cost align and then underneath those what does the outlook the jobs growth l the labor market tells you about those so you can use those to make programming decisions and curriculum decisions within each of those different programs. So we try to bring in as much external data as we are able to to incorporate in with our benchmarking to help our members use the benchmarking data to make decisions at their institutions.
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That's what it's all about. So let's talk about a type of analysis that some campuses are struggling with because of small staffing or maybe difficulties that it occur when trying to integrate internal and external data, exactly what you're doing with the cost and productivity project. And but this is understanding the value of a certificate and/or degree in relation to wages earned after graduation. So the institute offers a workforce training and non-credit education module. Who is choosing to participate in this type of data collection and why? What does it offer them?
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so our workforce module is both credit career technical education as well as non-credit workforce. and we're trying to measure the different aspects of delivering the workforce education as well as then the outcomes to it. Now outcomes we can successfully or two institutions can successfully give us information about degrees and certificates. We also have what I still call aspirational benchmarking in there, wanting to get information beyond the institution. Lots of people come and take their classes, their CDL, their real estate, information and then they go take their licensing through the state or some other type of entity. And some states have great resources to be able to get that, some do not. But our goal is to measure that career technical education both in terms of the comparison of delivering it through credit and not credit because some institutions people are sitting in those very same classes taking the same courses and some are doing it for credit and non-credit. Others it it's completely separate. We know that it's it's really there's no standardized way in the non-credit world or the workforce world to deliver on this type of education. so we're trying to give the different measurements for colleges to understand the cost of doing that as well as the involvement of students in their community and the success successful outcomes of those students. So
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This is really important. I can tell you there was always a little bit of panic every time the federal leaders at iPeds would start to talk about a non-credit data submission because your data is housed in so many systems or maybe even still just on paper. It's it's very hard to pull all of those strings together. So let's go ahead. Yeah.
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Yeah, there there is no standardized way right now for people to measure their non credits. So we're trying to provide that and we're trying to align it with what they do measure on the credit side. So they do have those types of comparisons.
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Yes. So let's end by telling listeners where they can meet you at either at fall or upcoming spring events and why they should start planning now to attend the 2027 benchmarking conference on June eighth through the tenth, twenty twenty-seven.
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So, first of all, if you're interested, go out to our website. It is nccbp.org. It gives you kind of a comprehensive view of all of the different benchmarks that we do. There's actually a map out there that kind of shows participation so you can see if your institution has historically participated in the project. And then we always have webinars available for you to participate in. So there's a button there. in terms of seeing us, we are out and about a lot. upcoming, we are going to be at CATYC. I think I said that right. I get the the initials
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Okay. You did.
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a little mixed up. that's coming up in the next couple of weeks in St. Louis. We're gonna be at Southern Air and Little Rock in October. We're also going to be at in NCWE, the National Council for Workforce Education, which looks at both the credit and the non-credit side of delivering workforce education. That is also in October in California, Palm, Palm Springs, California. we're gonna be presenting at the SAC COC conference, our annual meeting in December. And then we do the spring conferences, we try to be at Innovations, the National Air Forum, AACC, I don't know for sure what all we're gonna be at. Those submissions are still pending. but then as Deb Debbie said, we host our own conference in the Kansas City area, so it's right in the middle of the country. So hopefully it's easy for everybody to get in. We host that in June here at Johnson County Community College. it is for both users of our data as well as people just wanting to learn more about benchmarking data. So don't feel like you have to be a member of our project to come, it's not intended for that. That we have all sorts of type of people that attend from institutional research people to student services. We had several presidents attend. So it's it's designed for a range of people. It's mainly our members or others that are talking about using data, benchmarking data, and other data on their campuses to make decisions. So it really shows you the action side of it. you know what you can take this data, take the data and do with it at your institution. So I've been told it's a a great learning opportunity. They get lots of hands-on practical things our our attendees can use to take back and apply at their institutions. So we would love to have you be a part
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Yes. Plus you can
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of it.
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you can create great relationships with people that will respond to your email when you ask them questions. I know that from personal experience that it is a nice it is a nice conference where you have the opportunity to, I think, to get to know people better than when you're at some of the larger national events.
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And it is just for two year institutions, which there's not a lot of conferences that just focus on the two year folks for you to be able to connect with them.
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Yes, so true. So, Michelle, I've known you for a long time, and it's always so great to sit down and learn more about the National Community College benchmarking project. Thank you again for spending time with me today. You're always so enthusiastic
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Thank you for having me.
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about data. and how it can be used to create meaningful analytics that help community colleges meet accreditation standards and demonstrate the value of a college education. And to our listeners, Thanks for joining us for another episode of Data Stakes. Data Stakes is sponsored by the Data Analytics Alliance for Higher Education. You can visit our website to learn more about our upcoming quarterly meeting. If you have any questions about today's conversation, don't hesitate to reach out to me at dephelps at data telegent.ai.
