Institutions Covered

IPEDS defines postsecondary education as a formal program designed primarily for students beyond the 'compulsory' high school age.

This includes programs whose purpose is academic, vocational, or continuing professional education, and excludes avocational and adult basic education programs.

• Included - Only Institutions open to the General Public
• Included - Education provided in combination with Hospitals
• Not Included - Institutions providing Noncredit Continuing Education Programs

IPEDS includes only those institutions that are open to the general public. Therefore, training sites at prisons, military bases, and corporations are not considered separate institutions or branches, regardless of how the institutional system classifies such training sites.

Data on enrollment, finance, and other components from such locations or training sites are incorporated into the data reported by the main campus or another appropriate institution or branch campus in the system.

IPEDS usually includes only hospitals containing one or more separate entities whose primary purpose is to provide postsecondary education, such as schools of nursing and radiology. Hospitals offering only internships or residency programs are not included, nor are hospitals that offer only training as part of a medical school program.

Training conducted as part of a medical school program is included in the reports of the postsecondary institution offering the medical program. Hospitals operating more than one school are treated as a single postsecondary entity.

This is consistent with the practice for other postsecondary institutions, where NCES only requests reports for the institution as a whole, not for each program.

The definition of postsecondary education excludes noncredit continuing education programs and education units; organizational entities providing only these educational services are not included as institutions.

Schools whose only mission is to prepare students to take a particular test (e.g., CPA) are not included in IPEDS.

Organizations that offer training at many sites (e.g., H&R Block) may be consolidated into a single institutional unit when deemed appropriate by NCES.

High schools with vocational programs are also excluded from IPEDS since their primary purpose is not the provision of postsecondary education.