\n<\/p>\n
Eighty-seven\u00a0percent of institutional research officials say they\u2019d 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. <\/p>\n
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\u2014from March 18 to June 18. That extension would \u201csupport the accuracy, integrity, and usability of the resulting data,\u201d the association wrote in a letter Wednesday to the department.<\/p>\n
The Education Department did not respond to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>\u2019s questions about the ACTS survey, including if it plans to extend the deadline. <\/p>\n In August, Trump directed ED to collect years of disaggregated admissions data from colleges and universities\u2014including the test scores, grade point averages, race, sex and income ranges of applied, admitted and enrolled students dating as far back as 2019\u2014in order to verify that they aren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n But public comments submitted last fall showed widespread concern as higher education institutions and their advocates argued that the ACTS survey\u2019s data collection requirements were too vague, requested data institutions do not collect, could violate student privacy and would overburden institutional resource offices\u2014including 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. <\/p>\n AIR\u2019s comment noted that approval of the survey would constitute \u201cthe single largest expansion in [Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System] history, adding more than 100 new questions and roughly 10,000 data fields.\u201d <\/p>\n Despite those warnings, the Education Department finalized the rule in December, giving institutions 90 days to submit the data. Typically, institutions have a full year to collect and submit other IPEDS data.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n According to the survey AIR conducted in February, roughly 90\u00a0percent 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. <\/p>\n Just 4\u00a0percent of the institutions surveyed have submitted the necessary files to IPEDS for the ACTS survey. Meanwhile, 81\u00a0percent said they were still in the planning stages or actively compiling the data. \u201cI\u2019m a one-person IR and Assessment office and have no margin in my workload,\u201d one survey respondent said. \u201cGiven all the cuts to education, staffing is at its most stretched thin,\u201d another added. \u201cI simply do not have the FTE for a project this large.\u201d <\/p>\n Others noted a variety of logistical concerns, including 71\u00a0percent who said they were majorly or moderately challenged by data availability and 52\u00a0percent who said the same about technical or system limitations. <\/p>\n \u201cEnterprise systems are designed to run a university, not to classify students and transactions into the very specific categories ACTS requires,\u201d said one institutional resource officer. Another added that \u201cdata systems change over time, and asking for seven years of back data makes this a more difficult task.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, 74\u00a0percent said they have found it majorly or moderately challenging to interpret ACTS definitions and guidance. At the same time, 68\u00a0percent said it\u2019s been moderately or majorly challenging to maintain data quality and consistency. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to move quickly when data definitions are unclear\u00a0\u2026 or we find that other schools have received different guidance from the IPEDS help desk,\u201d one survey respondent told AIR. Another commented that \u201cIPEDS is providing conflicting responses to so many of the questions.\u201d A third lamented that with just five weeks before the due date, the details of the quality control review process still weren\u2019t online. <\/p>\n In some cases, colleges don\u2019t even have the data the government is asking for. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re asking for unweighted high school grade point averages, but that\u2019s something we don\u2019t require\u2014we have it for some students but not others. That\u2019s an area that we\u2019re probably just going to leave blank,\u201d John Nugent, director of institutional research and planning at Connecticut College, told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t require test scores, either, so we have a lot of blanks in our admissions data. And there\u2019s lots of other schools like that as well,\u201d he added. \u201cWhat is the federal government going to do with the data schools provide when it has gaps like this?\u201d <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n And the stakes have never been higher. <\/p>\n 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\u2019s larger crusade to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across higher education. <\/p>\n \u201cDespite the ruling in SFFA<\/em>, 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,\u201d read the Federal Register<\/em> notice requesting public comment on the addition of the ACTS survey to IPEDS.<\/p>\n It noted that because the federal government does not currently collect racial data on admissions and scholarships, it \u201chas limited tools to ensure widescale compliance with Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964].\u201d Collecting that data through the ACTS \u201cwill help to expose unlawful practices, enable the Department to better enforce Title VI, and create good incentives for voluntary compliance.\u201d <\/p>\n Numerous respondents to the AIR survey also raised questions about the government\u2019s plans for the data. <\/p>\n \u201cI am uncomfortable with a process that requires uploading individual-level student data,\u201d one said. \u201cEven aggregated data identify many of our students individually.\u201d Others said they were \u201cconcerned with what [the administration was] going to do with these indexed summaries\u201d and had \u201cserious doubts that the data we submit will be used responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n But Erin Dunlop Velez, vice president of research for the Institute for Higher Education Policy, said she\u2019s not sure that the government is going to find what it\u2019s looking for in the ACTS survey data. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is not enough information to determine whether schools are still using race in admissions decisions,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many factors that go into admissions decisions, but ACTS is just collecting some of the factors: test scores and GPA\u00a0\u2026 I think the Education Department is hoping to say that any school where the percentage of Black students or other racial minorities didn\u2019t go down [after SFFA], they must still be considering race. That is just not true.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of the government\u2019s motives behind requiring the ACTS survey, IHEP is also supportive of AIR\u2019s request for a three-month extension.<\/p>\n \u201cJune 18 is the fastest reasonable completion deadline,\u201d Velez said. \u201cThe bottom line is that the rushed implementation of the ACTS data collection has seriously compromised data quality and overburdened research offices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eighty-seven\u00a0percent of institutional research officials say they\u2019d 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[8227,3385,6601,3141,568],"class_list":{"0":"post-45681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-admissions","9":"tag-extension","10":"tag-offices","11":"tag-research","12":"tag-survey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Stretched Thin\u2019<\/h2>\n
Questions About Quality, Intent <\/h2>\n