High School and Beyond Fifth Follow-up Data File

The High School & Beyond Survey of 1980 is the second of the longitudinal studies designed and conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

The policy issues studied through HS&B included the identification of school attributes associated with achievement; the influence of parent and community involvement on students' achievement and development; the dynamics and determinants of dropping out of the educational system; changes in educational practices over time; and the transition of different groups (for example, racial and ethnic, sex, and socioeconomic status groups) from high school to postsecondary institutions and the labor market. HS&B inquired into the influence of students' values and goals; investigated home, school and personal factors affecting risk and resiliency; gathered information about the social capital available to sample members; delineated students' curricular and extracurricular experiences and determine their later impact; and comprehensively catalogued students' school programs, coursetaking experiences, and cognitive outcomes.

In 2013-14, the University of Texas and NORC collected data from the HS&B sophomore cohort (when most cohort members were in their early 50’s) with support from NCES. This data file provides both cross-sectional as well as the longitudinal data collected over 30 years after the initial base year survey of the cohort of students.