This section describes (1) the separately administered survey that collected information from the high schools attended by respondents in the Young Men cohorts and (2) the set of created variables detailing characteristics of up to three colleges attended by respondents in the Young Men cohorts. Comparable data are available for respondents in the Young Women cohort. No similar surveys were administered for the Older Men.
High School Survey
Information on secondary schools was collected during 1968 by the Census Bureau via a separate school survey mailed directly to the 3,030 schools attended by respondents in the Young Men and Young Women cohorts. After follow-up procedures were conducted to maximize responses, some information is available for approximately 95% of the schools attended by the members of these two cohorts; complete information is available for 75% of the schools (Kohen 1973). Data were collected on (1) characteristics of the schools (type of school, total student enrollment by grade, annual expenditure per pupil, number of books in the school library); (2) characteristics of the school's teachers and counselors (number of full-time teachers and counselors, annual salary for an inexperienced teacher, presence of a vocational guidance program); and (3) respondents' performance on various aptitude and intelligence tests as well as their absenteeism and school disciplinary record. Constructed variables including an index of school quality, number of books per pupil, number of students per full-time teacher, number of counselors per 100 students, percent black/Spanish-American student enrollment, and percent black faculty are also available for one or both cohorts. The "Aptitude, Achievement & Intelligence Scores" and "Crime, Delinquency & School Discipline" sections provide additional information on those subsets of the school survey variables.
Important information: School record collection
The universe for this survey was those respondents who had completed the ninth grade by the time of the 1968 survey and had signed a waiver form permitting Census to collect information from their school records.
| Survey Instruments & Documentation | Data were collected using the separate School Survey instrument. The first page of the codebook identifies the reference numbers for these high school variables. A series of appendices within the Young Men Codebook Supplement provides additional information on this survey and some of its constructed variables. |
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College Survey
A series of variables provides information about the colleges attended by respondents in the Young Men and Young Women cohorts during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Data on schooling collected during the regular surveys (e.g., grade attending, when entered this school, names and locations of colleges, highest grade completed) were merged with information detailing the characteristics of each college to form this set of created variables called the "College Survey."
The following variables were created for each of up to three colleges attended (i.e., the first college attended, the most recent college attended as of 1971, and the college attended for the longest time between the first and most recent college), the last year the respondent attended that college, state identification code for the college's location, whether the college was private or public, the type of college or university, the highest college degree offered at the institution, the race/sex composition and socioeconomic status of the student body, an index of institutional selectivity, number of books in the library, percentage of faculty with a Ph.D., expenditures per full-time student, ratio of students to faculty, and an index indicating whether the college was "below average," "average," or "above average" in six areas of occupational/career orientation.
Important information: Number of institutions attended
Respondents who attended fewer than three institutions are coded "NA" for the college attended for the longest time between first and most recent college. For those respondents attending only one institution, characteristics of that institution will be reflected twice, in both the series of variables relevant to the first college attended as well as in those relevant to the most recent college attended.
References
Astin, Alexander. Who Goes Where to College. Chicago, IL: Science Research Associates, 1965.
Kohen, Andrew. "Determinants of Early Labor Market Success among Young Men: Race, Ability, Quantity and Quality of Schooling." Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1973.
| Survey Instruments & Documentation | Responses to Information Sheet items and data collected from the "Educational Status" sections of the 1966-71 Young Men questionnaires provided the schooling information for each respondent. The first page of the codebook identifies the reference numbers for these college variables. External data sources are identified in the codeblock for each created variable. |
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