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Office of Institutional Research

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   Common Data Set

The Common Data Set (CDS) contains information about: Enrollment and Persistence, Graduation, First Year Student Admissions, Transfer Admissions, Academic Offerings, Annual Expenses, Financial Aid, and Faculty.

The CDS is a cooperative effort among data providers in higher education and publishers of information about higher education (e.g., the College Board, U.S. News and World Report, etc.). The goal of the CDS is to improve the quality and accuracy of information provided to the public about higher education. Thus, the CDS employs a set of standard definitions of data items. When viewing OSU responses to the CDS, it is important to also examine the definitions which structure the way in which data is extracted and reported.

Many higher education surveys rely on information from the CDS for their survey items as well as specific items that are the property of the individual publisher.