On April 28, the Federal Register published a notice from the Census Bureau stating that the agency will retain Person Question No. 12 – Undergraduate Field of Degree in the American Community Survey (ACS). In 2014, the Census Bureau had proposed to remove this question, along with four others, from the ACS.
AERA was among 625 organizations that submitted comments on this specific question in December. In its comments, AERA noted the importance of the question on undergraduate field of degree for the National Science Foundation’s National Survey of College Graduates, which uses responses to that question as a sampling frame.