IR Terms and Definitions | Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness

Below are some regularly used terms and definitions related to institutional research. Please reach out to IR_Help@colostate.edu if you have questions or do not see a definition you are seeking.

Item	Definition
Academic Year (AY)	Per IPEDS, the federal definition of an academic year excludes the summer semester(s) but includes fall, winter, and spring semesters.
Applicant	An individual who has fulfilled the institution’s requirements to be considered for admission (including payment or waiving of the application fee, if any) and who has been notified of one of the following actions: admission, nonadmission, placement on waiting list, or application withdrawn by applicant or institution.
Attempted Credits	The number of credits attempted by a student in a given semester.
Attendance status	A classification of student enrollment based on the number of credit or clock hours in which they are enrolled, either full-time or part-time.
Attrition Rate	An attrition rate is the percent of a cohort that are no longer enrolled at CSU at a given time point.
CIP Code	The NCES Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) provides a taxonomic scheme that supports the accurate tracking and reporting of fields of study and program completions activity.
Cohort	A specific group of students established for tracking purposes.
Cohort year	The year that a cohort of students begins attending college.
Completed Credits	The number of credits that are completed by a student in a given semester. These credits include grades that may not contribute to the GPA (ex: F and U grades). This does not include credits that a student withdraws from (W grade).
Cost of Attendance	The Cost of Attendance (COA) total estimated cost for a student to attend an institution for a specific academic period (typically a year). It includes both direct costs—such as tuition, mandatory fees, room, and board—and indirect costs, such as books, supplies, transportation, and personal expenses. The COA serves as a key component in determining a student’s financial aid eligibility and provides a comprehensive view of the expenses associated with attending the institution. The components of COA may vary depending on the student’s enrollment status (e.g., full-time or part-time), residency (e.g., in-state or out-of-state), and living arrangements (e.g., on-campus, off-campus, or with family).
Course department/college	The course or department identified by the course prefix.
Course Level	Course level is the level of a course and it can be graduate or undergraduate. Courses number below 500 are undergraduate and graduate courses are number as 500 or higher.
Credential	A credential is an official recognition or certification awarded by a postsecondary institution that signifies the completion of a defined program of study or set of requirements. Credentials may include degrees (i.e. bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate) or certificates at CSU. Credentials are recognized by the CDHE and documented on official transcripts.
Credit department/college	The department or college that funded the instruction of course through the credit reassignment process using instructional data entered in the SCAIT system. Data collected in SCAIT allow the student credit hours to be assigned to the appropriate instructor, department, and college.
Education & General Funding (based on fund groups)	Education & General (E&G) Funding refers to the primary financial resources allocated for the institution’s core academic and operational functions. This budget encompasses expenses related to instruction, academic and student support services, faculty and staff salaries and benefits, administrative operations, and the maintenance of campus facilities. The E&G budget is primarily funded through two main sources: Tuition Revenue (funds collected from students for enrollment in courses) and State Support (financial appropriations provided by the state government to support public higher education institutions). It’s important to note that the E&G budget does not cover activities such as most research initiatives and auxiliary programs (e.g., housing, dining services), which are typically funded through separate budgets. Understanding E&G Funding is crucial for comprehending how CSU allocates resources to fulfill its educational mission and maintain daily operations.
Faculty	The faculty includes all personnel who carry academic rank (professor, associate professor, assistant professor, master instructor, senior instructor, instructor, and faculty affiliate) and the University President.
First Generation	Student self-report either on their application or FAFSA materials.
Full-Time/Part-Time Enrollment	Student enrollment status determined each semester by the student level and the number of credits attempted. Undergraduates are considered full time at 12 credits a semester and graduate students at 9 credits a semester.
Full-Year (FY)	Per IPEDS, the federal definition of a Full Year is a leading summer, fall, and spring semester.
Gender	Legal sex.
Grade Point Average (GPA)	Grade Point Average; Cumulative average of course work on a four-point scale. A=4.0, B=3.0, C=2.0, D=1.0, F=0.0 (https://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/academic-standards/grading/).
Graduation Rate	A graduation rate is the percent of a cohort that graduated by a given time point in time.
IPEDS Race/Ethnicity	Mutually exclusive racial identities based on the federal priority order. International status is first priority, then Hispanic, then mixed race, then all other identities.
Limited Income	Limited income status includes Pell recipients as well as those students who did not qualify for Pell (e.g., expected financial contribution above Pell guidelines or undocumented status) and demonstrated financial need (e.g., based on completion of Colorado Application for State Financial Aid (CASFA)).
Net Cost of Attendance	The net Cost of Attendance (COA) is the estimated cost a student is responsible for paying to attend an institution after subtracting all forms of gift aid, such as grants and scholarships, from the total COA. The Net COA includes direct costs (e.g., tuition, fees, room, and board) and also accounts for indirect costs (e.g., books, supplies, transportation, and personal expenses). It provides a more accurate reflection of the out-of-pocket expenses a student may incur.
Pell Grant	Federal Pell Grant; Grant offered by the Federal government where as the amount depends on your financial need, costs to attend school, status as a full-time or part-time student, and plans to attend school for a full academic year or less. For more information see the ED.GOV website.
Persistence Rate	A persistence rate is the percent of a cohort that are still enrolled at CSU or have earned a degree at a given time point.
Primary Degree Majors	Primary degree major is a program type on IRI report filters and sorts. All students have a unique primary major or a primary graduate certificate, which are tied to departments and colleges and used for enrollment headcounts. All additional programs of study are listed as a secondary degree major or a secondary graduate certificate. Students may have multiple secondary degrees. Minors can only be awarded along side an undergraduate or graduate degree. Undergraduate and graduate certificates may be eligible to be awarded independent of a graduate degree.
Race/Ethnicity	A student’s self-selected race/ethnicity regardless of their IPEDS categorization.
Residency	Refers to tuition classification, not a student’s current state of domicile. In state tuition (resident) classification status requires domicile (legal, primary residence) in Colorado for the year immediately preceding the first day of class. During the one-year domicile period, students should comply with all legal obligations of a Colorado resident. Students under age 22 (unemancipated minors), are eligible for in-state tuition if a parent or court-appointed legal guardian has been domiciled in Colorado for one year. In very specific situations (defined by the CDHE) some students may be classified as resident for tuition classification without meeting the domicile requirement.
Resident Instruction (RI) and Non-Resident Instruction (Non-RI)	The term “resident instruction” (RI) is NOT defined by the instruction of “resident” students (as defined by tuition classification). RI Hours refer to credit hours that are eligible for state support. The defining feature of these credit hours is the source of funds: only those courses for which the source of funds is classified as Education and General (E&G) can be counted as RI hours. Resident Instruction hours must be credit hours which have been attempted by students (regardless of tuition classification) enrolled in the term for which the reporting is occurring. Any course that is funded outside of the Education and General Budget (E&G) is non-RI. This includes all cash funded/auxiliary hours such as off-campus, extended campus, or continuing education courses, non-credit courses, all course sections where enrollment is closed to the general public (the curriculum is customized for an employer or the course is funded by customized job training dollars), basic skills courses, or transcripted credits not directly attributed to college instruction (e.g., AP, ACE, IB, and CLEP).
Retention Rate	A retention rate is the percent of an entering cohort that are still enrolled at CSU at a given time point.
Rural	Rural status is provided for undergraduate Colorado residents whose high school of attendance is known. Rurality is based on Colorado Department of Education definitions (https://www.cde.state.co.us/ruraledcouncil) and determined at the district level.
Secondary Major	Secondary degree major is a program type on IRI report filters and sorts. All students have a unique primary major or a primary graduate certificate, which are tied to departments and colleges and used for enrollment headcounts. All additional programs of study are listed as a secondary degree major or a secondary graduate certificate. Students may have multiple secondary degrees. Currently all UG certificates and minors can only be awarded along side a undergraduate or graduate degree. Graduate certificates are eligible to be awarded independent of a graduate degree.
STEM	A program of study or course with a CIP code that is determined to be STEM from either ICE or NSF.
Student Credit Hour	A Student Credit Hour (SCH) is a unit of measure representing an hour (50 minutes) of instruction per week over a standard academic term, typically 15 weeks, totaling approximately 750 minutes of instruction. Each credit hour corresponds to a minimum of three hours of student engagement per week, combining both in-class instruction and out-of-class work. This standard is based on the Carnegie Unit, which defines one credit hour as one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours of out-of-class student work each week for approximately fifteen weeks. SCH are calculated by summing the total number of credits attempted in a given course by all students. If there are 15 students in a 3 credit course the SCH for the course is 45. The contact hour to credit hour calculation is documented by the University Curriculum Committee (https://curriculum.colostate.edu/media/sites/130/2017/01/CONTACT-HOURS-GRID.pdf) and align with state standards.
Student Full-Time Equivalent	A standardized measure used to represent student enrollment by converting part-time and full-time enrollment into a single value for comparison and reporting purposes. Annualized FTE is calculated by dividing the total of student credit hour by 30 for undergraduate SCH and 15 for graduate SCH.
Student Level	Student level is a filter and sort through the IRI reports that assign a level to the student. These levels include undergraduate, graduate, professional, self-improvement, and graduate coo-op program.
Traditional Student	Undergraduate students that are under the age of twenty-three.
Unsuccessful Course Completion	The percent of students attempting a course that did earn a grade of C or better. This is also the D, F, W rate for a give course.
Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE)	A regional tuition savings agreement administered by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). WUE enables students from one of 16 WICHE states and territories in the Western U.S. to enroll as nonresidents in participating public colleges and universities and pay 150 percent (or less) of the enrolling institution’s resident tuition.