Several individuals at the Survey Research Center of the University of California at Berkeley provided help in obtaining the SIPP data, including Fred Grey and Ilona Einowski. Finally, Elliot Medrich and Robert Vergun of MPR Associates, Berkeley, provided us with the 1990 SIPP data as well as with a protocol for matching job titles and fields of study.
This research grew out of an early suggestion to Patty Beatty-Guenther, who received her Ed.D. from the School of Education at Berkeley and is now the director of institutional research at North Island College, British Columbia, that SIPP data might be appropriate for estimating the benefits of community colleges. Her early work with the SIPP was instrumental in clarifying for me the usefulness of this data set.