GSS Universe Content Description

Data Sets/Classes Defined

Major Hierarchy:
The major declared by the student that term, and corresponding academic department and division information.

Payments:
Information about the payment including term, amount, employment percent (if relevant), type of payment, and FOAPAL charged.

Chart of Accounts: Hierarchies associated with each element of the FOAPAL charged, for use in grouping information. When a record has "-" (missing) Org, Fund, and Account it means the payment was made directly to the student from an outside funding agency.

Job Title Hierarchy: Information about the payroll Title Code associated with the payment (if relevant), including the Class Title Outline hierarchy.

UCOP Financial Aid Award Hierarchy: A hierarchy exists for categorizing payments. From highest to lowest, the hierarchy is:

Student:
Information about the student including their identity (except for loan payments), major, registration status, level, and limited demographic information such as gender and ethnicity as of the 3WK of the terms in which the payment is made. If a 3WK record does not exist for the student, then the information is pulled from End of Term census information. If a student is not registered in the term in which they received payment, such as summer, the student's identity and major is derived from the preceding term (up to 3 terms back). However, registration information remains term-specific.

Object Definitions:  Definitions of each object in each class can be found in the GSS universe data dictionary.