The time commitment required to participate in the PDP varies and is based on several factors: institution size, student information system, ease of data preparation, and reporting centralization. Some institutions have stated that the initial PDP implementation process can take up to 1 work week to set up but also noted that careful review of the PDP instructions and guidelines at the outset of the process can lead to time savings later. Colleges also noted that subsequent rounds of data submissions required much less time.

All required and optional data elements may be found within the PDP Data Submission Guide. A concise list of data elements may be found here: Key Performance Indicators and Critical Data Elements.

Certifying your institution's data files confirms they are complete and ready for the data quality checks. More information may be found within the Data Certifications description.

The students you include in your data files are based on “cohorts.” Cohorts include all undergraduate students who attempted at least one course in the current term for the first time at your institution. For more specifics, take a look at Creating a Data File.

The Effective Date is the date on which the Degree and Enrollment data that will be merged with your certified data submission is pulled. The Clearinghouse sets four effective dates per year – typically late September, late November, late February/early March, late June.

Effective dates are “snapshots” of the postsecondary enrollment and degree data against which your certified data submissions are used for calculating and generating the PDP’s AR files and dashboards.

No, PDP data is not used in other services offered by the Clearinghouse. Any data element that is specific to PDP is just used for the PDP service.

You are welcome to submit multiple cohorts and years within a single submission. Typically, after your initial historical submissions, institutions will submit twice per year — during our fall submission window and our spring submission window.

No, the Financial Aid file is optional for all PDP institutions for both initial and subsequent submissions.

The PDP collects more detailed course level data, such as when a student took a specific course, the students grades in the course, how many credits the student earned from the course, etc., and more information about cohorts and financial aid. The PDP also integrates this data with information supplied to the Degree Verification (DV) and Enrollment Verification (EV) services. This allows the PDP dashboards and analysis-ready files to provide much more in-depth student metrics and outcomes.

The Service Account ID is provided in the “Your Next Steps to Postsecondary Data Partnership” email. When creating your files, the File Header (naming convention) must include the 8-digit Service Account ID. If you need your Service Account ID, please email us at implementation@studentclearinghouse.org.

Think of the cohort file as all first-time enrolled students for a given term. Students should only appear in one cohort file submission (unless a student has left your institution and is later being reported as a re-admit student.)

A course file will contain student course-level data from all of your cohorts. Course files will also include all students previously denoted in a cohort file.

No! Many data quality alerts are generated due to idiosyncrasies in an institution’s data that are not data errors. The Clearinghouse works with each institution to understand their data. In many cases, the PDP Service team and the submitting institution agree on how the data will impact the reports and the submitting institution instructs the Clearinghouse to move forward with the submitted data.

If the numbers or calculations look incorrect on your dashboards (e.g., credit completion ratio is 100%), there is a high number of “unknowns” for a variable, or a filter or dashboard is not populated, or there is likely an issue with your underlying data. Users can read more about using the dashboards to check for data quality here: Using the Dashboards to Check Data Quality. Please email PDPSupport@studentclearinghouse.org for more assistance.

It means the system has identified errors that exceed the allowable threshold limit and therefore, your file has stopped processing.  Please follow the instructions on the File Submission Summary page to correct your files. 

Users on the FTP notification list may request a password reset via the link on the FTP site. To access the FTP site, you can go to www.studentclearinghouse.org and select the FTP Login link. FTP stands for file transfer protocol, and is the your PDP FTP login is what you need for uploading data files or accessing analysis-ready files.

Financial aid data is not required to utilize PDP.

Institutions will submit the following financial aid student information:

Identifying information about the student

Information that may be found on a student’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Information about any grants or loans the student has received.

More information may be found here: Formatting the Financial Aid File Detail Records.

Institutions may choose to submit financial aid data files at any time once course and cohort files have been successfully certified.

Several metrics are available among the PDP dashboards such as Gateway Course Completion by Grade, Credit Accumulation Rate by Year, Time to Credential, and more. Additional information about key metrics may be found here: Key Performance Indicators and Critical Data Elements.

The PDP offers benchmarking dashboards for the following: Outcomes, First Year Accumulation Rate, First Year Credit Completion Ratio, Transfer, and Retention and Persistence.

There are links to courses and dates for upcoming webinars available through the Clearinghouse Academy.

Initial data submission requires 3-5 academic years of course and cohort file data. Institutions may submit additional academic years beyond the 3-5 minimum, but it is not required. Note that most PDP dashboards will display up to 8 cohort years worth of data.

The National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit formed in 1993, is the trusted source for and leading provider of higher education verifications and electronic education record exchanges. All our services facilitate compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects students’ privacy rights in their education records. We embrace the education community’s Student Data Principles and have signed the Student Privacy Pledge.

More details on coding the required variables for course and cohort files can be found in the Knowledge Base:

Course File Formatting: Formatting the Course File – Detail Records

Cohort File Formatting: Formatting the Cohort File – Detail Records

These resources outline variable descriptions, coding structures, requirement statuses, and formatting guidelines.

Analysis-ready data files are only stored in your FTP account for 30 days. After that, files are purged for data security purposes. If you need a new AR file generated, please reach out to PDPService@studentclearinghouse.org.

All data submitted by the data provider is integrated into our data warehouse following data quality checks. The PDP does not store individually submitted files.

Institutional data is removed from our systems within 90 days from request of cancellation.

Institutions are responsible for an annual PDP subscription fee, based on the institution’s undergraduate full-time equivalent (FTE).

Institutions should expect finalized, built dashboards within 30 days of initial data submission.

Institutional users need to contact their User Administrator to create an account, then the user may login to their secure User Portal using their new credentials. If you are unsure who your institution’s User Administrator is, email PDPService@studentclearinghouse.org.

Data within the dashboards will be updated following PDP Effective Dates, 4 times a year. Institutions are encouraged to submit new cohort and course files twice a year.

There are benchmarking dashboards that allow you to compare your institution to up to 5 other PDP institutions. PDP Benchmarking dashboards include: First Year Credit Completion Ratio, First Year Credit Accumulation Rate, Transfer, Outcomes, and Retention & Persistence dashboards.

Yes, the PDP has a different definition of cohort than IPEDS so the cohort count may be different. IPEDS defines a cohort as first-time full-time students, whereas the PDP defines a cohort is any student new-to-the-institution that term.

The dashboards and analysis-ready files show up to 8 historical cohort years.