Statistical Termination or Fewer Self-Identified Students: What Is Causing the Decline in American Indian and Alaska Native College Enrollments?

Jeffrey Burnette, Jason T. Younker and David P. Wick
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Jason T. Younker: University of Oregon
David P. Wick: Rochester Institute of Technology

Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 2021, vol. 4, issue 4, No 2, 237-256

Abstract: Abstract Using data from the American Community Survey to conduct a difference-in-differences analysis, we investigate the impact on reported American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) college enrollment from a 2008 change in how the US Department of Education collects, processes, and maintains race and ethnicity data. This change removed the restriction that individuals select a single race or ethnicity category and classified all those indicating multiple categories as either “two or more races” or Hispanic. We find this change substantially reduced reported AIAN enrollment numbers in both the aggregate and as a proportion of the total student population. Our most conservative approach suggests the number of 2018 AIAN undergraduate and graduate students no longer classified as AIAN by the US Department of Education is 35% and 21% of their respective Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) total. Other models indicate that these undercounts may exceed 45% of their IPEDS total.

Keywords: American Indian and Alaska Native; Data disaggregation; IPEDS; College enrollment; Racial classification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1007/s41996-020-00057-y

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