How the Survey of the Economy’s Impact on Colleges Was Conducted

The Chronicle e-mailed the survey on economic conditions in September to officials at 819 four-year institutions, of which 531 were private, nonprofit colleges and 288 were public ones. Chief financial officers were asked to take the survey.

The institutions represented a mix of sizes, endowments, and types, including research, master’s, and bachelor’s colleges and universities. The survey period was two weeks.

In all, 166 institutions responded, of which 136 were private and nonprofit and 30 were public.

Private colleges were overrepresented among respondents compared with their representation among all four-year colleges; public research institutions were overrepresented among the public colleges that responded. The Chronicle did not send the survey to a random sample of recipients, and so the results may not be representative of all four-year colleges.