Notice2025-15536
Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 2024-25 Through 2026-27
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
August 15, 2025
Issuing agencies
Education Department
Abstract
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the Department is proposing a revision of a currently approved information collection request (ICR).
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 156 (Friday, August 15, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 156 (Friday, August 15, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39384-39386]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-15536]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
[Docket No.: ED-2025-SCC-0382]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request;
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 2024-25 Through
2026-27
AGENCY: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of
Education Sciences (IES), Department of Education (ED).
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995,
the Department is proposing a revision of a currently approved
information collection request (ICR).
DATES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before
October 14, 2025.
ADDRESSES: To access and review all the documents related to the
information collection listed in this notice, please use <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a> by searching the Docket ID number ED-2025-SCC-0382.
Comments submitted in response to this notice should be submitted
electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a> by selecting the Docket ID number or via postal
mail, commercial delivery, or hand delivery. If the <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>
site is not available to the public for any reason, the Department will
temporarily accept comments at <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#612822250e020a04152c06132104054f060e17"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="48010b0c272b232d3c052f3a082d2c662f273e">[email protected]</span></a>. Please include the
docket ID number and the title of the information collection request
when requesting documents or submitting comments. Please note that
comments submitted after the comment period will not be accepted.
Written requests for information or comments submitted by postal mail
or delivery should be addressed to the National Center for Education
Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of
Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW, LBJ, Room 5C133, Washington, DC 20202-
1200.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For specific questions related to
collection activities, please contact Matthew Soldner,
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#3a74797f69795557575349495355545f487a5f5e145d554c"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c38d80869080acaeaeaab0b0aaacada6b183a6a7eda4acb5">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Department, in accordance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)),
provides the general public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to
comment on proposed, revised, and continuing collections of
information. This helps the Department assess the impact of its
information collection requirements and
[[Page 39385]]
minimize the public's reporting burden. It also helps the public
understand the Department's information collection requirements and
provide the requested data in the desired format. The Department is
soliciting comments on the proposed information collection request
(ICR) that is described below. In addition to the Directed Questions
below, the Department is especially interested in public comment
addressing the following issues: (1) is the estimated burden of the
data collection accurate; (2) how might the Department enhance the
quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and
(3) how might the Department minimize the burden of this collection on
the respondents, including through the use of information technology.
Please note that written comments received in response to this notice
will be considered public records.
Title of Collection: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
(IPEDS) 2024-25 through 2026-27.
OMB Control Number: 1850-0582.
Type of Review: A revision of a currently approved ICR.
Respondents/Affected Public: Private Sector; State, Local, and
Tribal Governments.
Total Estimated Number of Annual Responses: 65,868.
Total Estimated Number of Annual Burden Hours: 740,511.
Abstract: In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair
Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA v.
Harvard) that discrimination on the basis of race in admissions
violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Despite the ruling in SFFA,
the continued widespread emphasis on ``diversity, equity, and
inclusion'' (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. The federal government does
not currently collect racial data on admissions and scholarships and
has limited tools to ensure widescale compliance with Title VI. Greater
transparency through the collection of this type of information will
help to expose unlawful practices, enable the Department to better
enforece Title VI, and create good incentives for voluntary compliance.
To address these concerns, President Donald J. Trump issued a
Presidential Memorandum on August 7, 2025 entitled ``Ensuring
Transparency in Higher Education Admissions,'' available at <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/ensuring-transparency-in-higher-education-admissions/">https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/ensuring-transparency-in-higher-education-admissions/</a>. In that memorandum, President Trump
directed the Secretary of Education to, within 120 days of that date,
``expand the scope of required [IPEDS] reporting to provide adequate
transparency into admissions.'' On that same day, Secretary McMahon
issued a directive to NCES to initiate a series of changes to IPEDS
during the 2025-26 school year. That directive is available at <a href="https://www.ed.gov/media/document/secretary-directive-ensuring-transparency-higher-education-admissions-august-7-2025-110497.pdf">https://www.ed.gov/media/document/secretary-directive-ensuring-transparency-higher-education-admissions-august-7-2025-110497.pdf</a>. The data to be
collected from this effort will capture information that could indicate
whether institutions of higher education are using race-based
preferencing in their admissions processes.
As such, in this submission, we are requesting to add the new IPEDS
``Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement'' (ACTS) survey
component. This component is expected to be applicable to all four-year
institutions who utilize selective college admissions, as these
institutions have an elevated risk of noncompliance with the civil
rights laws. Likewise, these institutions have a higher risk of
noncompliance in awarding scholarships because of their selectivity.
Open-access institutions, such as community colleges and trade schools,
have minimal or no risk for civil rights noncompliance in admssions
because they admit all (or the vast majority of) students who apply.
These institutions may present some risk of noncompliance in awarding
scholarships. A Directed Question about the scope of this survey
component appears below.
The ACTS component will collect data separately for undergraduate
and graduate students. For undergraduate students, we anticipate the
component will collect data by race-sex pair on: (1) the count of
institutions' applied, admitted, and enrolled cohorts, both overall and
further disaggregated by admission test score quintiles, GPA quintiles,
ranges of family income, Pell Grant eligibility, and parental
education; (2) the average high school grade point average and
admission test score quintiles for institutions' applied, admitted, and
enrolled cohorts; (3) the count of students admitted via early action,
early decision, or regular admissions.
Among newly enrolled undergraduate students, we anticipate the ACTS
component will collect data by race-sex pair on both the count and
average amount of students receiving: (1) any institutional grant aid,
(2) merit-based institutional grant aid, (3) need-based institutional
grant aid and (4) any local, state, or federal government aid overall,
and further disaggregated by admission test score quintiles, GPA
quintiles, ranges of family income, and enrollment via early action,
early decision, or regular admissions.
We anticipate the ACTS component will also collect data overall and
by race-sex pair on (1) students' average cumulative GPA at the end of
the academic year; (2) the average cost of attendance, and further
disaggregated by admission test score quintiles, ranges of high school
grade point average, ranges of family income, and enrollment via early
action, early decision, or regular admissions. (3) graduation rates
further disaggregated by admission test score quintiles and ranges of
high school grade point average; and (4) graduates' final cumulative
grade point average. Additional data may be gathered to better
understand remedial or other non-credit coursework for newly enrolled
students.
For graduate students, many of the same data elements identified
above are anticipated. However, data on graduate students will be
further disaggregated by broad fields of study defined by the following
CIP codes: Arts & Humanities (CIP codes: 4, 5, 16, 23, 24, 30, 38, 39,
50, 54); Education (CIP code: 13); Public Service (CIP codes: 25, 42,
43, 44); Agriculture, Consumer Services, and Trades (CIP codes: 1, 3,
9, 10, 12, 19, 31, 46, 47, 48, 49); Business (CIP code: 52); Other
Social Sciences (CIP codes: 45.01, 45.02, 45.03, 45.04, 45.05, 45.07,
45.09, 45.11, 45.12, 45.13, 45.14, 45.99); Economics/Political Science
(CIP codes: 45.06, 45.10); STEM (CIP codes: 11, 14, 15, 26, 27, 28, 29,
40, 41); Health (CIP code: 51); Medical Residencies (CIP code: 60.02,
60.04, 60.05); Other Residency Programs (60.01, 60.03, 60.06); Law (CIP
code: 22). Graduate programs are to be broken down by fields of study
due to the fact that applicants apply directly to institutional
departments based on their field of study.
In the 2025-26 survey only, the new component will seek to capture
data not only from the 2025-26 academic year but also from the five
prior academic years. Data will be collected from the five prior
academic years to establish a baseline of admissions practices from
before the Supreme Court decision in SFFA v. Harvard. This baseline is
crucial to helping to track racial changes in admissions practices.
Data alone is not determinative as to whether institutions are engaging
in unlawful
[[Page 39386]]
discrimination, but the Department may use data to develop risk-based
enforcement practices. As such, in the 2025-26 survey, institutions
should anticipate providing admissions data for the 2020-21 through
2025-26 academic years. Similarly, graduation rates reported in the
2025-26 survey should cover not only academic year 2024-25, but also
academic years 2019-20 through 2023-24.
Directed Questions. The Department invites you to submit all
aspects of the proposed data collection. We are particularly interested
in commenters' feedback on the questions listed below.
(1) Applicable Institutions. The Department is interested in
feedback pertaining to the types of institutions required to complete
the ACTS component, including whether there are other objective
characteristics that the Department could use to identify institutions
that have a low-risk or high-risk of noncompliance with Title VI. In
addition, the Department is interested in feedback regarding whether
open-enrollment institutions are at-risk of noncompliance with respect
to scholarship awarding practices that provide preferential treatment
based upon race. Feedback received will help to inform us as to whether
we should narrow or expand the scope of institutions required to
complete the ACTS component.
(2) Time Burden. The Department is interested in feedback
pertaining to the anticipated amount of time it will take for your
institution to compile and submit the anticipated data elements in
ACTS.
Brian Fu,
Acting Chief Data Officer Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy
Development.
[FR Doc. 2025-15536 Filed 8-13-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P
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