The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research proposes a planning grant which would itself propose data collection and analysis, and data linkage whereby researchers and higher education institutions could examine the impacts of a liberal arts education. The primary activities in the planning grant, which we refer to as ?Phase One? include 1) assess administrative core data elements; 2) design template data sharing agreements; 3) select and gather information on candidate universities; and 4) constitute a scientific advisory board. These activities will set the stage for ?Phase Two? — solicit, ingest, and process administrative student record data for two cohorts (one of current students and the other of recent alumni) from the target institutions and to design a survey of a sample of students and alumni from those institutions.