Dive Summary:
- Working with the Social Security Administration, the National Technical Institute has developed an unparalleled data set containing information on 14,000 students who have applied to the school since its opening in 1968.
- While similar data at most schools comes from surveys, NTID's data is gathered by providing the Social Security Administration (the only organization in the process that has access to specific, identifiable information) with the social security numbers of students and applicants, receiving in return anonymous financial outcomes including earnings and dependence on social welfare programs for graduates and non-graduates from the past four decades.
- The school believes its data could be a model at a time when the federal government is calling on colleges to prove the economic worth of their degrees.
From the article:
As politicians, pundits and others continue a debate about the economic worth of a college degree, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf believes a unique database can give Congress an idea of what value, exactly, its credentials add. The college for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, part of the Rochester Institute of Technology, has worked with the Social Security Administration to develop a data set unparalleled in American higher education, with information on 14,000 students who have applied to NTID since it opened in 1968. ...