Description

HDFAST indicates whether or not the respondent depended on financial support from an assistantship or work study during his/her highest post-secondary degree. The respondent was asked to indicate all sources of financial support that applied. Other variables from this survey question include HDFEM, HDFERN, HDFGFT, HDFGRN, HDFLN, HDFOT, and HDFPLN.

Comparability

First-time respondents to NSCG and NSRCG surveys answered a series of questions about their most recent, second most recent, and first bachelors (if it was not already one of the respondent's latest two degrees), including sources of financial support. Later, NSF determined which degree was the respondent's highest degree and assigned responses to this variable accordingly in the original NSF data.
Due to the follow-up survey design, the responses for this variable may have been allocated from the respondent's answers to a previous survey. All respondents filled out the education history questions in the first survey they returned, so it is not clear from the original documentation what determines the Logical Skip cases in some samples.

Universe

Availability