U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has directed the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to begin collecting new data from colleges and universities regarding race discrimination in admissions. The order is intended to fulfill a memorandum from President Trump that aims to increase transparency in higher education.
Colleges and universities will now be required to provide data broken down by race and sex about their applicant pools, admitted students, and enrolled cohorts at both undergraduate and certain graduate or professional levels. The information will also include academic indicators such as standardized test scores, grade point averages, and other characteristics of applicants.
Additionally, Secretary McMahon instructed NCES to establish an audit process designed to ensure the accuracy and consistency of the reported data across institutions.
“Following the revelations of rampant racial preferencing in college admissions exposed by SFFA v. Harvard, the Trump Administration is now standardizing reporting from colleges and universities to provide full transparency into their admissions practices. It should not take years of legal proceedings, and millions of dollars in litigation fees, to elicit data from taxpayer-funded institutions that identifies whether they are discriminating against hard working American applicants. Going forward, universities will be required to provide this data directly to us through an existing data system,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “We will not allow institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments. The Trump Administration will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education.”
The directive comes after the Supreme Court's decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), which found that using race as a factor in college admissions violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
NCES operates the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which collects various types of information—including enrollment figures—from colleges receiving federal student aid funds under Title IV agreements with the Department of Education. Previously, IPEDS surveys only gathered racial breakdowns for enrolled students but did not collect similar data on applicants or those admitted.
With these changes, members of the public will have access to new information allowing them to evaluate whether schools are favoring some applicants over others based on race.
