About this report:

Data come from the U.S. Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Data are reported to IPEDS annually , but there is a lag between the time when data are reported to the system and when they are publicly available. Data shown here include the most recent that were available as of mid-August.

Retention and graduation rate data are for students who started at the institution as first-time, full-time undergraduate students in the fall or summer term. retention or graduation status reflects the students' status at the initial institution only -- students who went on to attend and/or graduate from a different institution are not counted among successes for these rates.

Full-time equivalent faculty are estimated using by adding the total number of full-time faculty to one-third of the number of part-time faculty. Faculty counts are made in the fall semester, typically October 1.

The "Selected National Peers" group was identified by a university task force and approved by Senior Leadership and the Board of Trustees in 2021. All US universities that met the following citeria were considered:

• Public university
• Endowment less than $1 billion
• At least 10,000 enrolled
• No hospital or medical school
• Six-year graduation rate >= 65%
• Four-year graduation rate >= 40%
• Retention rate >= 80%
• Not "R1: Doctoral Universities -- Very high research activity" (Carnegie Classification) or state flagship

From that pool, schools were selected based on the following flexible criteria (i.e. schools did not need to meet all of these):

• Similar student profile (SAT score, first-generation, Pell eligible)
• Similar size or distribution of faculty
• Undergrads make up 25% to 95% of enrollment
• Retention and Graduation rates meet/exceed GVSU 2025 goals
• Graduation rate equity (rate for underrepresented minority / rate for white) exceeds GVSU 2025 goals
• Six-year graduation rate equity equal to or exceeds GVSU’s
• Improving graduation rates