Help Center

Fall enrollment figures are the traditional measure employed by four-year colleges and universities in their enrollment reporting while the two-year institutions like community colleges traditionally report the annual enrollment figure. We include both to provide apples-to-apples analysis but default based on the type of institution to their traditional reporting standard.

Our ability to allow for the data to be broken down (by gender, for example) is based on the availability of that information. In general sources allow us to break down (disaggregate) the majority of our data based on age, gender and ethnicity. For two year institutions we extend in places to allow analysis by remedial status or Pell status. We will continue to add options in the future as our data providers add support for those options. If there are particular disaggregations you'd like to see supported, contact our offices.

The best way to make sure information is available in the system for as many of the hundreds of institutions in the state as possible is to collect it from the agencies and offices that those institutions report to. Unfortunately, the process of collecting, verifying and publishing those data on the part of the agencies takes time, so most of the state systems report data from the previous year and some of the federal systems another year behind that. The IPP is using the newest information publicly available and always looking for new sources of information that would serve you better, but it is unlikely for the foreseeable future that a real-time information portal will be made available at a statewide level. Check local reporting systems for individual institutions to verify whether or not any real-time data are available for your institution of interest.

The IPP pulls together information that other sites don't (it already has integrated data from the Illinois Community College Board, the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission in a way that no other site does), offers historical trend information that many sites don't, allows the data to be broken down (disaggregated) in ways that many sites don't, and provides a wide variety of analyses of data. The site has been designed to be accessible to people from all backgrounds while not sacrificing the depth of data traditionally only found on agency reporting sites that are much more difficult to navigate.

The federal system that the IPP uses for campus locations currently lists only the main campus location for each institution in the state, and so those are the only ones that are displayed on the search screen.

The IPP displays information drawn from state and federal reporting systems and show the information that was submitted to those federal systems. In some cases the difference could be because the numbers were adjusted after being reported. In other cases the state or federal system might have asked for information that sounds the same, but is really a little different (see the FAQ regarding enrollment, for example.) The individual school's web site often will have more current information as well (see FAQ regarding data reporting year.) There are lots of potential reasons. Feel free to use the feedback button to report an issue if you think the data the IPP is reporting is in error - we consider the accuracy of our data to be one of our highest priorities and investigate every report of a discrepancy.

The IPP draws data from a variety of state and federal sources, each with its own publishing schedule(s). In general, the IPP has major data refreshes twice a year, once in mid-summer (June/July) and once in early winter (December/January.)

The simplest way is to use the CONTACT US button that appears throughout the site whether you're asking a general question or wish to express praise or concern about some aspect of the site. The feedback systems is actively monitored by our staff.

The IPP development has included feedback from the participating state agencies and from a variety of stakeholder groups, including institutions whose data is in the system, public and private advocacy groups, and direct input from student and other potential user groups. If you represent an organization interested in participating in advisory or feedback collection processes for the IPP, use the CONTACT US button to contact us and provide us your information.