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Methodology M.02Where the numbers come from
A benchmark is only as good as its sources and its rules. Here are both: the four data foundations every peer comparison is built on, and the published rules that decide which institutions count as your peers.
Four data sources, all named
No proprietary black boxes at the foundation layer. Every peer comparison begins with sources you can look up yourself.
IPEDS
The U.S. Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System: enrollment, institutional control, sector, and characteristics data for every Title IV institution. The backbone of peer-set construction.
NACUBO
National Association of College and University Business Officers: higher-education finance and auxiliary-services benchmarking that situates bookstore economics within institutional budgets.
NACS
The National Association of College Stores: collegiate retail sector data — store revenue patterns, category mix, per-student spend, and the digital-migration trends behind the displacement term.
Public contract disclosures
Executed bookstore agreements at public institutions, obtained through public records and published board materials — real commission structures, MAG levels, and clause language from real contracts.
How a peer set gets built
Peer sets are constructed by rule, not by judgment — the same discipline that governs the rest of the methodology. The rules exist so that no one can quietly assemble a flattering comparison group, in either direction.
Every finding discloses the full peer set used: which institutions, which characteristics matched, and which benchmark vintage applied. If your team wants to argue with the comparison, the finding hands you everything you need to do it — that's deliberate.
Where a peer set cannot meet the minimum size under the strict rules, the rules relax in a fixed, documented order (region first, then residential profile) and the finding states which relaxations applied. Confidence is graded, never implied.
- R.1Enrollment Band± One Band
- R.2Control & SectorMatched
- R.3Store ModelMatched
- R.4Residential ProfileMatched
- R.5RegionPreferred
- R.6Minimum Set SizeEnforced
- —DisclosureFull Set, In Finding
Relaxation order is fixed and documented; every applied relaxation is stated in the finding.
Every benchmark carries a date
Benchmark tables are refreshed on a fixed cadence as source data publishes — annually for IPEDS and sector data, continuously as new public contract disclosures surface. Every figure in a finding cites its vintage: the benchmark's as-of date sits next to the benchmark, not in a footnote.
Stale comparisons flatter whoever benefits from the past. In this category, that is rarely the institution.
What the data can't see
Private institutions' contracts are rarely public, so private-sector benchmarks lean more heavily on sector data, disclosed public-institution terms of comparable scale, and engagement experience — and carry wider confidence bands as a result. Findings grade the confidence of every benchmark used rather than presenting all comparisons as equally solid.
This is also why findings state conservative-end figures: the bands absorb what the data cannot see.