Grading

Measuring Up 2002: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education

HOW WE GRADE STATES

State grades (A, B, C, D, or F) in the five performance categories are based on that state's performance relative to other states.

Step 1. Identify indicators
Indicators, or measures, are selected for each performance category—preparation, participation, affordability, completion, and benefits. All indicators used in Measuring Up:

	are important in assessing performance in the category,
	are collected regularly by reliable, public sources that follow accepted practices for data collection,
	are comparable across the 50 states, and
	measure performance results.

Step 2. Weight indicators
Each indicator is assigned a weight based on its importance to the performance category.

Step 3. Identify top states for each indicator
State results on each indicator are converted to a scale of 0 to 100, using the top five states as the benchmark. This establishes a high, but achievable standard of performance.

Step 4. Identify best state for each category
State scores for each category are calculated from the state’s index scores on the indicators and the indicators’ weights. In each category, the sum of all the index scores on the indicators times the weights of the indicators is the raw category score for the state. These raw category scores are then converted to a scale of 0 to 100 based on the performance of the top state in the category.

Step 5. Assign grades
Grades are assigned based on the category index scores, using a grading scale common in many high school and college classes.

HOW WE MEASURE IMPROVEMENT

“Improvement since Measuring Up 2000” (described as “Improvement” or “No Improvement”) measures a state’s progress in relation to it's own previous results.

1. Compare each state’s results* on the indicators in Measuring Up 2000 with its results on the indicators in Measuring Up 2002
Measuring Up 2000 provided results on 30 indicators, or measures, of state performance in higher education. Measuring Up 2002 provides updated results for each state.

2. Determine whether the state’s performance on each comparable indicator improved or declined since Measuring Up 2000

3. In each performance category, identify whether the majority of each state’s results improved
With the weights of indicators taken into account, if the majority of a state’s results increased, then the state made “improvement” in that performance category.^† If the majority of a state’s results did not increase or remained the same, then the state made “no improvement” in that performance category.

For more information about indicators and calculations, see the Technical Guide: Documenting Methodology, Indicators, and Data Sources at www.highereducation.org.

* The results, or raw scores, are the numerical values that each state receives on each indicator. (To see how results are converted to grades, see “Grading.”)

^† The “majority” here is a weighted majority. Each indicator is assigned the same weight as in grading (see “Grading”). The only exceptions are in those performance categories where indicators have been added or refined, or where updated state information was not available; in those cases, the weights are adjusted proportionately.