PDP Now Accepts Additional Data

The National Student Clearinghouse is excited to announce the release of updated and new optional data fields for the Postsecondary Data Partnership (PDP). Updating and adding these optional fields will enhance the ongoing work between institutions and third parties that participate in PDP and reflects feedback we received from PDP users across different types of organizations.

New values for existing fields: New race and first-generation values have been added to the current files to improve the capture of demographic information.

The values are:

• TM: Indicates two or more races (individual races unknown)
• E: Indicates at least one parent attended college and earned a credential or degree (level unknown)

New optional fields: Fields have also been added to both the cohort and course files to capture more information about your learners and the courses they are taking. This optional data includes, but is not limited to student gender, military status, disability status, and information about the course’s instructor of record. Important: Continuing data submitters can update all these data elements through the file update process.

If you don’t intend to send the new optional fields, you do not need to make any changes to your file structure, even if you plan to use the new race and/or first-generation values.

How to Learn More

Here’s where you can learn more about the updated and new data fields, as well as the update process:

• PDP knowledge base
• PDP submission guide
• Register now for our May 26 webinar, “PDP: Submit New Optional Data Elements”

The Clearinghouse is working on ways to utilize this new data, including how to provide it to you in your analysis-ready (AR) files and, for some of the data elements, in PDP’s dashboards. Watch for our summer 2022 release on the availability of this new data in your AR files!