Three Major Concerns About ED’s New Admissions Data Collection

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) took a major step toward implementing the new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). ED’s recently released plans detail reporting expectations, timelines, and additional guidance so institutions can better see what ACTS will actually require. The scale of these requirements is staggering.  

Today, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) led a coalition of 34 members and partners of the  Postsecondary Data Collaborative (PostsecData) in sending a letter to ED leadership, detailing significant concerns with the agency’s approach.  

The resources ED released answer some technical questions and reduce burden at the margins, but they do not resolve the core ACTS issues. Implementation is still rushed, enormously complex, and poised to generate data that are easily misused and hard to interpret. 

The accelerated rollout and limited engagement with the field jeopardizes data quality

IPEDS has earned a trusted reputation over decades by carefully vetting new survey elements and engaging practitioners, researchers, and data policy experts to ensure definitions and reporting requirements are practical and consistent. By contrast, ACTS is being implemented on an unusually fast timeline with minimal field engagement. Many key questions remain, including: 

• How should institutions report available data from prior years on students’ “sex” without using the previously available “unknown” and “another” categories?   

• How should institutions unweight high school GPA if a student or transcript only reports a weighted GPA?  

• For students who submit multiple test scores, which test scores will institutions be required to report?   

Without clear answers to such questions and forgoing the field engagement that has been standard with other IPEDS additions, institutions will be forced to make decisions without guidance. The result? Data that are inconsistent, difficult to interpret, and less useful for decision-making.  

Institutional burden is massive and institutions do not have the technical support needed to meet reporting requirements

Under ACTS, institutions would be required to report hundreds of new data points, including up to six years of retroactive information, on a compressed timeline. ED’s own burden estimates indicate the ACTS collection will take nearly 2.5 times as long for institutions to collect than all of the rest of IPEDS combined. Even with new options to help schools generate the thousands of required data tables, the workload is enormous.  

Additionally, the aggressive schedule ED is pursuing is at odds with  this year’s cancellation of the IPEDS training contract meant to support institutional capacity. Historically, IPEDS training helped institutions and agencies through the federal data reporting process, ensuring that collections were consistent and comprehensive. Under these new requirements, data reporters are expected to submit far more data, faster, and with fewer supports. To ensure ACTS produces reliable and comparable information, ED must restore the IPEDS training contract and provide the technical assistance needed to meet these new reporting demands. 

ACTS data cannot be used for the Administration’s stated purpose

A central justification for ACTS is that these data could reveal whether institutions are using race-based preferences in admissions following the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court decision. But this is not a responsible nor accurate use of these data. Myriad factors shape institutions’ admissions decisions. Some are reflected in ACTS data, like standardized test scores, and some are not, like athletics or legacy preferences that boost admissions chances for students related to alumni or donors. Not all institutions consider all of these factors and how they shape admissions decisions varies. For example, the most selective institutions have many more applicants with strong test scores than they can admit.  

High quality ACTS data would provide greater insight and transparency into the admissions process but cannot provide the complete picture of how institutions weigh the full range of factors in their decisions. 

What ACTS should be

PostsecData has long championed stronger federal data systems. Responsible use of admissions data can expand opportunity, improve transparency, and support evidence-based policymaking, but only if the data are high-quality and designed in consultation with the field. Done wrong, it risks creating confusion, burden, and backlash without delivering meaningful insight for institutions or policymakers. 

ED has taken constructive steps by clarifying certain definitions and offering some tools to reduce reporting burden. But piecemeal fixes cannot solve structural problems with the collection’s design, timeline, and intended use. 

IHEP and our partners have called on ED to slow the rollout, engage deeply with practitioners, researchers and advocates, and redesign ACTS so that it relies on clear, field-informed definitions, aligns with realistic timelines and available data, and illuminates, rather than obscures, how postsecondary access shapes opportunity. 

To learn more, read PostsecData’s  five recommendations to ensure ACTS data meet the same high-data quality standards as other IPEDS survey components.