Research Offices Ask for Extension on Admissions Survey

Eighty-seven percent of institutional research officials say they’d benefit from more time to compile the seven years of admissions data that the federal government plans to use to look for unlawful race-based admissions practices.

Citing those and other findings from a survey of 390 institutional research and data professionals published Thursday, the Association for Institutional Research asked the Education Department to extend the deadline for the newly created Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) survey by three months—from March 18 to June 18. That extension would “support the accuracy, integrity, and usability of the resulting data,” the association wrote in a letter Wednesday to the department.

The Education Department did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the ACTS survey, including if it plans to extend the deadline.

In August, Trump directed ED to collect years of disaggregated admissions data from colleges and universities—including the test scores, grade point averages, race, sex and income ranges of applied, admitted and enrolled students dating as far back as 2019—in order to verify that they aren’t unlawfully considering race in admissions decisions after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such practices unconstitutional in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in 2023.

But public comments submitted last fall showed widespread concern as higher education institutions and their advocates argued that the ACTS survey’s data collection requirements were too vague, requested data institutions do not collect, could violate student privacy and would overburden institutional resource offices—including many with just one or two full-time employees. At the same time, the Education Department has gutted the National Center for Education Statistics, leaving fewer employees on hand to help institutions navigate the IPEDS reporting process.

AIR’s comment noted that approval of the survey would constitute “the single largest expansion in [Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System] history, adding more than 100 new questions and roughly 10,000 data fields.”

Despite those warnings, the Education Department finalized the rule in December, giving institutions 120 days to submit the data. Typically, institutions have a full year to collect and submit other IPEDS data.

So far, implementing ACTS has been a heavy lift for most institutional resource offices, which are also on the hook to submit additional IPEDS data and other end-of-term data this spring.

‘Stretched Thin’

According to the survey AIR conducted in February, roughly 90 percent of institutional researchers said staffing capacity, data availability or quality, interpretation of definitions or requirements, and timing or uncertainty related to evolving guidance were the primary barriers affecting timely and accurate data submissions.

Just 4 percent of the institutions surveyed have submitted the necessary files to IPEDS for the ACTS survey. Meanwhile, 81 percent said they were still in the planning stages or actively compiling the data. “I’m a one-person IR and Assessment office and have no margin in my workload,” one survey respondent said. “Given all the cuts to education, staffing is at its most stretched thin,” another added. “I simply do not have the FTE for a project this large.”

Others noted a variety of logistical concerns, including 71 percent who said they were majorly or moderately challenged by data availability and 52 percent who said the same about technical or system limitations.

“Enterprise systems are designed to run a university, not to classify students and transactions into the very specific categories ACTS requires,” said one institutional resource officer. Another added that “data systems change over time, and asking for seven years of back data makes this a more difficult task.”

Questions About Quality, Intent

Additionally, 74 percent said they have found it majorly or moderately challenging to interpret ACTS definitions and guidance. At the same time, 68 percent said it’s been moderately or majorly challenging to maintain data quality and consistency.

“It’s difficult to move quickly when data definitions are unclear … or we find that other schools have received different guidance from the IPEDS help desk,” one survey respondent told AIR. Another commented that “IPEDS is providing conflicting responses to so many of the questions.” A third lamented that with just five weeks before the due date, the details of the quality control review process still weren’t online.

In some cases, colleges don’t even have the data the government is asking for.

“They’re asking for unweighted high school grade point averages, but that’s something we don’t require—we have it for some students but not others. That’s an area that we’re probably just going to leave blank,” John Nugent, director of institutional research and planning at Connecticut College, told Inside Higher Ed.

“We don’t require test scores, either, so we have a lot of blanks in our admissions data. And there’s lots of other schools like that as well,” he added. “What is the federal government going to do with the data schools provide when it has gaps like this?”

While Nugent is among the majority of institutional research officers who say they would benefit from an extended deadline to submit the ACTS survey data, most offices are moving full steam ahead to meet the March 18 deadline until they hear otherwise.

And the stakes have never been higher.

In addition to institutions facing up to $71,545 in fines for not completing and submitting the data, the ACTS survey is a part of the Trump administration’s larger crusade to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across higher education.

“Despite the ruling in SFFA, the continued widespread emphasis on [DEI] in higher education causes concerns that unlawful practices may persist because DEI has been used as a pretext to advance overt and insidious racial discrimination,” read the Federal Register notice requesting public comment on the addition of the ACTS survey to IPEDS.

It noted that because the federal government does not currently collect racial data on admissions and scholarships, it “has limited tools to ensure widescale compliance with Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964].” Collecting that data through the ACTS “will help to expose unlawful practices, enable the Department to better enforce Title VI, and create good incentives for voluntary compliance.”

Numerous respondents to the AIR survey also raised questions about the government’s plans for the data.

“I am uncomfortable with a process that requires uploading individual-level student data,” one said. “Even aggregated data identify many of our students individually.” Others said they were “concerned with what [the administration was] going to do with these indexed summaries” and had “serious doubts that the data we submit will be used responsibly.”

But Erin Dunlop Velez, vice president of research for the Institute for Higher Education Policy, said she’s not sure that the government is going to find what it’s looking for in the ACTS survey data.

“This is not enough information to determine whether schools are still using race in admissions decisions,” she said. “There’s so many factors that go into admissions decisions, but ACTS is just collecting some of the factors: test scores and GPA … I think the Education Department is hoping to say that any school where the percentage of Black students or other racial minorities didn’t go down [after SFFA], they must still be considering race. That is just not true.”

Regardless of the government’s motives behind requiring the ACTS survey, IHEP is also supportive of AIR’s request for a three-month extension.

“June 18 is the fastest reasonable completion deadline,” Velez said. “The bottom line is that the rushed implementation of the ACTS data collection has seriously compromised data quality and overburdened research offices.”