Colleges and universities love to compare themselves to others – operational peers, aspirational peers, regional peers, national peers. This comparison is often encouraged by accrediting bodies, government agencies, system offices and others. Before conducting a comparative exercise, however, an institution should ask itself why benchmarking is a potential solution.
Benchmarking can inform a myriad of institutional actions. For the institution, benchmarking against similar institutions can help schools identify where they perform favorably or unfavorably relative to peers. Given the relatively public nature of most institutional initiatives, peer institutions can provide valuable examples for program development or improvement for areas where the benchmarking institution may rank unfavorably.
Identification and examination of successful peer activities can also help an institution discover new ideas to enhance achievement. Indeed, an important element of effective benchmarking is understanding and identifying what enhancements or changes the benchmarking results suggest; an effective leader must focus the organization on outcomes and improvements suggested by the data – rather than the data itself.
Benchmarking is not limited, however, to the idea of enhancing institutional performance. Benchmarking results can be shared with both internal and external constituencies, promoting an environment of accountability and transparency. An institution’s accountability extends in several directions, including an institution’s accountability to state or governing agencies, accountability to students, key performance indicators, operating measures and the like.
Filling a data gap
Two decades ago, the late Jeff Seybert served as director of institutional research at Johnson County Community College (Kansas), where he identified a critical gap in data specific to community colleges. Leveraging his expertise, network and skills, Seybert established the National Community College Benchmark Project (NCCBP). The initiative was pioneering in its provision of actionable benchmarks designed to aid community colleges in enhancing their service to students and communities.
Over the past 20 years, the NCCBP has evolved in tandem with shifts in the higher education landscape. Despite the emergence of competitors, the NCCBP has maintained its relevance, timeliness and impact. Its modules — which include traditional indicators, cost and productivity metrics, workforce development, student services, administrative services and enrollment tracking — enable two-year institutions to link institutional performance with student outcomes.
The NCCBP is unique in the fact that its benchmarks are focused not just on student outcomes but also the inputs that impact those student outcomes, which range from student services staffing, minority employment ratios, training and development for faculty and staff, and everything in between. In addition, the NCCBP delivers benchmarking data to member institutions almost a full year earlier, enhancing their agility and strategic planning capabilities. In recent years, the NCCBP created a crosswalk between specific accreditation standards and benchmarks to support them.
The NCCBP serves as the flagship project under the broader umbrella of the National Higher Education Benchmarking Institute (NHEBI), which also provides support for other initiatives such as the American Association of University Professors annual Faculty Compensation Survey. As a non-profit organization based at Johnson County Community College, the NCCBP prides itself on being created by a community college for community colleges. Its mission is not focused on profit-making but instead on fostering relationships, providing personalized service and making a meaningful impact.
Highlights from this year’s conference
This year’s National Higher Education Benchmarking Institute Conference in June held at JCCC featured three keynote sessions. At the opening keynote, Daria Willis, president of Howard Community College, noted her start in higher education as a student parent in the early 2000s, when little thought was given to the tremendous variation in student populations and how colleges could help students individually and categorically with services and supports to meet their circumstances, which went beyond tuition and fees. Now, as president of the Maryland college, Willis uses data to learn about her college and its possibilities for increased enrollment and new programming, including shifting resources to help students where they are and a re-envisioning of student services, workforce development, developmental education, library space and support, and employee development.
Later, Chris Gilmer and Austin Grimmett of Tougaloo College (Mississippi) discussed in their keynotes their unique academic journeys: Gilmer, a first-generation student and former community college president and now social justice policy researcher, was a mentor to Grimmett, also a first-generation student who recently became an attorney and community college professional. Gilmer and Austin reminded the audience that these professionals have tremendous power and influence with “first gen” students and their families and their words and deeds — such as helping students in off hours on evenings and weekends — can have a “make or break” impact on these students’ academic progress and success.
In the final keynote, Jason Browning, chief data officer at Montana State University, and Reed Scull, associate professor of higher education administration at the University of Wyoming, discussed the rise of the chief data officer (CDO) in higher education, which was the topics of Browning’s dissertation and subsequent articles.
The CDO position can be seen as a response to some of the complexities that have developed in higher education’s operational environment in recent years. Challenges in technology, the quality/reliability of data and data governance and the intricacies of modern business processes all have made decisions more consequential as they are more challenging. Browning’s research found that the CDO position represents a possibility of a systematic approach to data issues, where its purpose and functioning are clear and its activities are positioned at the C-suite level. Involving in-depth interviews of six CDOs at institutions across the country, the study found that transitions at the presidential level are a good time to consider the development of a CDO position.
Save the date: 2025 Benchmarking Conference, Overland Park, Kansas June 17-19, 2025
Scull’s research team at the University of Wyoming involved interviews of a related trend: the institutional research (IR) officer in community colleges. The study, based on interviews with a sample of six community college IR officers within one rural state system, resulted in several findings, including the work of IRs and the barriers — such as shortage of IR staff and lack of professional development — to using predictive analytics in their work.
As in the case of the CDO research, there’s been relatively little research done to understand these key positions in promoting institutional cultures for data-informed practice and decision-making, and this lack presents ample opportunities for both research and practice.
Common threads
There were several key points drawn from the conference’s nearly 20 sessions and keynotes, which focused on data, data analysis and benchmarking.
- Consider data as a more expansive concept. The keynote presentations in particular underscored that, even with the dramatic increases and improvements in the volume, velocity and analysis of quantitative data, stories and narratives, qualitative data have a role in informing practice and decision-making.
- Remember that everyone, from top to mid-level administrators, to faculty, staff and even students, can have a role in data collection and analysis.
- Benchmarking and data are not limited to an inward-focused institutional exercise. External communications are critical to community college leaders and their advocacy responsibilities. The sharing of data and benchmarking with governing boards, external accreditors and others can help to both communicate the current state of the institution and to situate the institution within the context of other similar or aspirational colleges.
- Benchmarking is a vital process in the accreditation process. By systematically comparing and learning from the best practices of other institutions, benchmarking helps higher education institutions strive for excellence and maintain the high standards required for accreditation. The NCCBP has created a crosswalk between specific accreditation standards and benchmarks to support them.
- We all should think deeply about benchmarking. The first question is: How are we performing on this particular metric? The immediate next question is: How is everyone else performing on this particular metric? NCCBP benchmarking provides the capability to address these questions for your college.
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Dr. Reed Scull is an associate professor of higher education administration at the University of Wyoming.
Dr. Jason Browning is chief data officer at Montana State University.
Dr. Jacque Eidson is director of the National Higher Education Benchmarking Institute at Johnson County Community College in Kansas.
