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| FAMU's chosen peer institutions (click to enlarge). |
Each year, universities choose their peer institutions when reporting their data to the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or Ipeds. In return, they receive a customized report that compares their performance to that of their selected peers on various measures, like enrollment, graduation rates, and average staff salaries.
In 2021-22 FAMU chose 17 universities as its peer,14 public universities, 2 privates, and four HBCUs -- Howard, NC A&T, Jackson State, and NCCU.
Sixteen universities, including four SWAC institutions -- Jackson State, Alabama State, Southern and Texas Southern--- consider FAMU to be one its peers. In total, nine HBCUs chose FAMU as its peer in 2021-22. A peer institution is a university that the institution sees itself being a lot a like.
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These schools chose FAMU as its peer. (click to enlarge) |
Why it matters
The choices colleges make about who to link themselves to also says something about what they value, how they perceive their status in the higher-education ecosystem, and, for some, what their aspirations are.
“Choosing a peer is a bit of an art and a science,” said Christin Keller, executive director and CEO of the Association for Institutional Research. “In some cases you look at: Are they doing something really well that you want to get better at? Theoretically, an institution will look at the data and goals, the purpose of their peer and trying to emulate it.”
Experts in higher education administration suggest a peer school list is likely a combination of schools that officials consider to be similarly academically ranked and more selective institutions that they “aspire” to be ranked closer to in the coming years.
Selecting peers allows institutions an avenue of additional exploration for comparison, to see how they are doing and as they look at more benchmarks to get better.