The Illinois Board of Higher Education approves all new units of instruction, research, and public service, as well as new academic administrative units, for public colleges and universities in the state.
With a statutory responsibility to establish a system of comprehensive, meaningful, and timely information about higher education, IBHE's data falls into three broad categories:
- demographic information about enrolled students and degree recipients
- faculty and staff information
- characteristics of individual colleges and universities.
Student demographic data includes age, gender, racial/ethnic group, enrollment status, major, type of degree being sought, and state of origin. Faculty and staff information includes race/ethnicity and gender as well as academic rank and tenure status.
Information about institutions includes price to students; physical plant space and operations; revenue source; objects of expenditures; academic unit and program costs; and faculty credit hour studies. In conjunction with the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the Board collects data on student financial aid.
This information supports the Board's planning and budgeting activities, its responsibility for systematic program reviews, and its periodic studies of issues of special concern or interest. It also makes available to the higher education community and the public a host of vital data that helps colleges and universities, as well as state leaders, as they shape policies affecting the significant role higher education plays in Illinois' economic, social, and cultural well-being.
Illinois law authorizes IBHE to collect and maintain data from public universities, non-public institutions of higher learning enrolling one or more students receiving Monetary Award Program grants and any non-public institution of higher learning that confers graduate and professional degrees.
