High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) Features
- Nationally representative, longitudinal study of 23,000+ 9th graders from 944 schools in 2009, with a first follow-up in 2012 and a second follow-up in 2016
- Students followed throughout secondary and postsecondary years
- Surveys of students, their parents, math and science teachers, school administrators, and school counselors
- A new student assessment in algebraic skills, reasoning, and problem solving for 9th and 11th grades
- 10 state representative datasets
HSLS:09 Data Collection Waves
- Base Year (2009)
- First Follow-up (2012)
- 2013 Update (2013)
- High School Transcripts (2013-2014)
- Second Follow-up (2016)
- Postsecondary Transcripts (2017-18) - Available now
Highlights
April 2024:
Postsecondary outcome data for HSLS:09 are now available! NCES has released the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) Postsecondary Education Administrative Records Collection (PEAR), which provides information on whether fall 2009 ninth-graders enrolled in postsecondary education by June 2021. Data up to 8 years after high school provide insights into the cohort's postsecondary completions as well as financial aid. Read more about the newest data in this report: High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09): A First Look at the 2021 Postsecondary Enrollment, Completion, and Financial Aid Outcomes of Fall 2009 Ninth-Graders (2024-022).
August 2023:
A new Data Point investigates whether high school students met with counselors about college and how meetings varied by parental education level. It also describes whether students later attended college and if attendance varied by whether students met with a counselor about college. High School Counselor Meetings about College, College Attendance, and Parental Education (2023-097).
January 2022:
Students are more likely to attend college within 3 years of high school if they think their family can afford it. Learn more about a new analysis using HSLS:09 data in College affordability views and college enrollment.
September 2021:
Arts credits earned by high school graduates differed by student demographics, as shown in a new Data Point report: Arts credits earned in high school and postsecondary enrollment: Differences by background characteristics. The Data Point also shows differences in postsecondary enrollment by numbers of arts credits earned in high school.
January 2021:
Now available! Geographical information for HSLS:09 sample members, at each wave of data collection. Restricted-use licenses are required for access of the HSLS:09 Geocodes file. Learn more on the HSLS:09 Available Data page.
November 2020:
A new brief using ELS:2002 data, Public High School Students' Career and Technical Education Coursetaking:1992 to 2013, examines the CTE coursetaking of public high school graduates in 2013 and changes in CTE coursetaking between graduates in 1992 and those in 2013.
Historical Background
HS&B:22 The High School and Beyond Longitudinal Study of 2022 is the sixth study in the series of school-based longitudinal studies. HS&B:22 is currently following a nationally representative cohort of Fall 2022 9th-graders, as they progress through high school and transition into postsecondary education and/or the labor force. NCES is planning to release the first data files from the base year of the survey in Fall 2024. The first follow-up with the cohort is planned for Spring 2026, when most students will be in the 12th grade.
HSLS:09 The High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 is the fifth study in the series of school-based longitudinal studies. HSLS:09 follows a nationally representative cohort of Fall 2009 9th-graders as they progress through high school and transition into postsecondary education and/or the labor force. As of Fall 2024, there is a third follow-up being planned for 2025, to collect data on civic participation, family formation, and labor market outcomes of Fall 2009 9th-graders, many of whom will be roughly 30 years of age.
ELS:2002 The Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 must be seen in the context of the prior NCES high school studies. ELS:2002 looks back to these past studies, upon which it builds and to which its findings will be compared. At the same time, it uniquely enhances the accomplishments of its predecessors by updating the content of the survey and extending the time line to a new decade. ELS:2002 follows a nationally representative cohort of 10th-graders in 2002 and 12th-graders in 2004.
NELS:88 The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) was launched in the spring of the 1987-88 school year with an initial sample of 24,599 participating eighth graders, one parent of each student participant, two of their teachers, and their school principal. Students were tested in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Two years later, in the spring of 1990, a subsample of base year participants and nonparticipants was followed and resurveyed, when most cohort members were sophomores but others were dropouts or were in other grades. The sample was freshened to represent 10th-graders in the United States in the spring of 1990, and students, teachers and school principals were surveyed as well. In 1992 the second follow-up repeated the student and dropout surveys, carried out freshening to ensure a representative senior cohort, repeated the parent and teacher surveys, and also followed a subsample of students who had been excluded from the base year (students who were deemed unable, owing to disabilities or language barriers, to complete the study instruments) to determine how they, and their outcomes, differed from students who had been included. The NELS:88 school and student residential data were also mapped to external sources, such as 1990 Census variables, to provide community-level or ecological variables. High school transcripts were also collected for NELS:88 sample members, as had been done for a subsample of the HS&B sophomore cohort a decade before. In 1994, the first out-of-school follow-up took place. The NELS:88 cohort was resurveyed again in the spring of 2000, and postsecondary transcripts were collected in the fall of 2000.
HS&B:80 In 1980, the second in the series of NCES longitudinal surveys of high school students was launched, this time starting with two high school cohorts. High School and Beyond (HS&B:80) included one cohort of high school seniors comparable to the seniors in NLS-72. The second cohort within HS&B:80 extended the age span and analytical range of NCES's longitudinal studies by surveying a sample of high school sophomores.
With the sophomore cohort, information became available to study the relationship between early high school experiences and students' subsequent educational experiences in high school and thereafter. For the first time, national data were available showing students' academic growth over time and how family, community, school and classroom factors promoted or inhibited student learning. The HS&B:80 school sample was large and diverse enough to permit investigations of the ways that public and private schools differ in their organization, curriculum, climate and outcomes. The HS&B:80 test battery also permitted researchers to measure cognitive growth in the course of high school, as well as, through the HS&B:80 questionnaires and transcript data, the correlates of growth. Moreover, data were now available to analyze the school experiences of students who later dropped out of high school. These data became a rich resource for policy makers and researchers over the next decade and provided an empirical base to inform the debates of the educational reform movement that began in the early 1980s. Both cohorts of HS&B:80 were resurveyed in 1982, 1984, and 1986, and their postsecondary transcripts collected. The sophomore cohort was also resurveyed in 1992, with a postsecondary transcript update in 1993.
NLS-72 NCES's longitudinal research with high school students began with the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS-72), with a sample of over 21,000 high school seniors. With this study, NCES began providing longitudinal data to educational policymakers and researchers that linked educational experiences with later outcomes such as early labor market experiences and postsecondary education enrollment and attainment. In 1968 the then-U.S. Office of Education awarded a contract to the Research Triangle Institute to develop a new study that would begin with a survey of 1972 high school seniors. To conduct intensive studies of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, NLS-72 oversampled schools in low -income areas and schools with significant minority enrollments. The cohort was resurveyed four times (in 1973, 1974, 1979, and 1986). Cognitive tests and questionnaires were administered in the base year, questionnaires were administered in subsequent years, and a postsecondary education transcript study was conducted in 1984.
Data Collection Rounds of the NCES High School Cohorts
HS&B:80: High School and Beyond of 1980
NELS:88: National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988
ELS:2002: Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
HSLS:09: High School Longitudinal Study of 2009
HS&B:22: High School and Beyond of 2022
F1: First follow-up data collection
F2: Second follow-up data collection
F3: Third follow-up data collection
F4: Fourth follow-up data collection
F5: Fifth follow-up data collection
HST: High School Transcript
PST: Post-secondary Transcript
PEAR: Postsecondary Education Administrative Records