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CIC Announces Mellon Grant to Create Capacity fo Data Collection and Analytic Studies on Private Higher Education

WASHINGTON, DC – The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) will create a data service on private higher education to help colleges “benchmark” their own activities and to give greater precision to the claims for the effectiveness of independent higher education. With help from a $125,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CIC will establish an ongoing program of research and analysis on a range of issues such as retention rates (which appear to be better at small, private institutions at all levels of selectivity).

“It is crucial that we develop better information on retention rates, diversity, costs, and a range of other issues that are related to educational effectiveness in small private colleges and universities,” said CIC President Richard Ekman. “The available data sets about the independent sector of higher education are not readily accessible, smaller institutions lack full-time researchers, and national research initiatives rarely disaggregate data about small and medium-sized private institutions,” Ekman said.

CIC Board Chair Margaret McKenna, president of Lesley University (MA), is also eager to establish a research capability at CIC. “This database on independent higher education is a much-needed initiative that undoubtedly will help our members make the case more effectively for smaller, teaching-oriented colleges.”

Richard Detweiler, President of Hartwick College (NY), Chair-elect of the CIC Board of Directors and Vice Chair for Programs, noted that, “The decision-making capability of independent colleges – particularly in allocating our limited resources – will be powerfully improved with high-quality, comparative information.”

The CIC database, which will include surveys of the independent sector of higher education, will enable individual institutions to “benchmark” some of their own activities, such as levels of spending in particular areas and curricular trends. 

The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation was incorporated in 1952 in New York with funds donated by Christian A. Johnson, a Swedish immigrant who became a prominent financier and industrialist. A man of wide-ranging interests, he derived great personal pleasure from nurturing the curiosity and intellectual development of young people as well as providing the financial means to help them achieve their educational goals.

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