Notice2026-18735
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 2025-26 Through 2026-27; Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS)
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Published
September 14, 2026
Issuing agencies
Education Department
Abstract
On November 13, 2025, the Department of Education published in the Federal Register a submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval, with a request for public comment, related to the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 2025-26 through 2026-27. This document revises the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION provided in that notice.
Full Text
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 176 (Monday, September 14, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58104-58109]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-18735]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
[Docket No.: ED-2025-SCC-0382]
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 2025-26
Through 2026-27; Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS)
AGENCY: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of
Education Sciences (IES), Department of Education (ED).
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: On November 13, 2025, the Department of Education published in
the Federal Register a submission to the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) for review and approval, with a request for public
comment, related to the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement
(ACTS) to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
2025-26 through 2026-27. This document revises the SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION provided in that notice.
DATES: These revisions apply to the notice published on November 13,
2025.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Matthew Soldner, U.S. Department of
Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 5C133, Washington, DC 20202.
Telephone: (202) 453-7441.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Department's November 13, 2025, notice
(90 FR 50940) requested OMB's review of, and public comment related to,
the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) to the
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 20256-26 through
2026-27. This document revises the discussion provided there in
accordance with the remand in Massachusetts v. U.S. Dep't of Educ.,
Case No. 1:26-cv-11229 (D. Mass. 2026).
Implementation Timeline
The Department's implementation timeline for ACTS--which currently
results in its collection launching during the 2025-26 Winter
Collection period--is driven by a confluence of public policy goals,
operational factors, and statistical purposes.
The primary purpose of the ACTS collection is to provide
transparency to consumers about college admissions practices hence the
name ``Admissions Consumer Transparency Supplement'' (see: Presidential
Memorandum; <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>), (see: ACTS
Supporting Statement Part A Revision 3 at page 16); (see: Appendix F
FRN 30-day Comment Responses at pages 11, 13, 18-20); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Although admissions cycles vary, many students and their families are
making application decisions in late fall and early winter (see:
<a href="https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/plan-for-college/apply-to-college/college-application-timeline-12th-grade">https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/plan-for-college/apply-to-college/college-application-timeline-12th-grade</a>). As such, institution-level
data on admissions practices have the potential to be most valuable to
students and families between summer and early fall (ibid.).
Here, the Department seeks to make admissions transparency data
available to students and parents as quickly as possible--ideally to
inform decision-making for students as they are applying to colleges.
The public is best served if that data can be made available as soon as
possible so students and parents can be informed as they decide where
to apply before critical fall application deadlines. To achieve that
goal, the Department must take its first available opportunity to
collect data on outcomes associated with institutions' admissions
practices.
Operationally, the Department's first available--and most logical--
opportunity to do so is as part of the IPEDS 2025-26 Winter Collection.
The Department believes that the timing of the ACTS component should
align to the timing of the Winter Collection because (a) the ACTS
component seeks to understand the outcomes associated with
institutions' admissions practices and (b) the IPEDS Admissions
component is currently included in the IPEDS Winter Collection.
Notwithstanding this conceptual link, the Department believes these
collections are operationally linked in their execution on campus. To
the extent the latter are a disaggregation of the former, the
foundational data required to complete the IPEDS Admissions component
and the admissions-related elements of ACTS are fundamentally the same.
The Department determined that modifying the existing Admissions
component to capture the admissions-related data elements that are now
part of ACTS would be more disruptive to institutions, the Department's
data collection contractor, and the integrity of the existing IPEDS
survey system,
[[Page 58105]]
than the development of an operationally separate component. The
Department believes that, as ACTS moves from its inaugural year to
become a regular feature of the IPEDS landscape, the co-occurrence of
these two components has the potential to reduce burden and improve
data quality. (See: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at page 6);
(see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment Responses at pages 13, 15, 18, and
22); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part B Revision 3 at page 5);
(<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Taken together, the Department's public policy goals and IPEDS
operational considerations informed the development of the ACTS
component's timeline as first described in the 60-day notice (90 FR
39384). Comments received in response to the 60-day notice highlighted
additional factors that reinforced to the Department that the initial
Winter timeline was necessary to meet its secondary purpose: to collect
data that will enable policymakers and researchers to address
longstanding questions about outcomes associated with college
admissions practices. (See: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at
pages 11 and 20); (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment Responses at
pages 16, 19, 20, and 21); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part A
Revision 3 at page 39); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Regarding the secondary purpose, two factors are in opposition: (1)
statistical approaches by which policymakers and researchers can
estimate the effect of SFFA v. Harvard on universities' admissions
demand data spanning multiple years, however (2) institutional data
retention policies have the potential to limit access to the data
researchers need to credibly conduct and contextualize such estimation.
Prior to the publication of the 60-day notice, the Department
anticipated that the most likely approaches to estimating the effect of
SFFA v. Harvard on admissions practices would demand multiple years of
ACTS data both before and after the court's decision (see: Appendix F
FRN 30-day Comment Responses at page 9, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). Although a variety of such
estimation methods exist, a foundational approach is known as the
interrupted time series (ITS). The notion behind ITS and similar
designs is that the effect of an outside event (exogenous shock) can be
estimated by calculating the change in the level and/or trajectory of
an outcome of interest prior to an event occurring compared to its
level and/or trajectory following an event's occurrence. If we are
willing to assume (or can credibly demonstrate) that the pre-policy
level and/or trajectory would have continued unabated but for the
policy's introduction, any difference between what would have been
projected to occur and what did occur is the policy's effect. (See:
Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at page 9, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Although confidence in the validity of time series analyses can be
affected by multiple factors, one important factor is the extent to
which the pre-policy and post-policy level and trend is accurately
estimated. Generally, more observations pre- and post-policy lend
accuracy and credibility to that estimation. (<a href="https://cteresearchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/CTERN-STI20-CITS-508.pdf">https://cteresearchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/CTERN-STI20-CITS-508.pdf</a> at page 7).
For the Department to collect the number of pre-SFFA v. Harvard
data points needed to support credible analyses and future policy
decisions, the Department determined that at least three years of pre-
policy data would be needed. SFFA v. Harvard was decided in June 2023,
clarifying the unconstitutionality of race discrimination in university
admissions. As such, the Department determined that its impact would be
first felt in the 2024-25 admissions process. Given the Department's
prior conclusion that at least three years of pre-policy data were
needed to support useful analysis, (see Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment
Responses at page 9, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>), this meant data from 2021-22,
2022-23, and 2023-24 would be required. Notably, the Department made it
clear in its 60-day notice that the data requested for these (and
earlier) years pertained not only to admissions outcomes but also to
institutionally malleable factors that might affect student decision-
making in the admissions process (e.g., the amount of student financial
assistance awarded to prospective students) and admissions processes'
downstream outcomes (e.g., completions and graduation rates).
Commenters to that 60-day notice expressed concern that
institutions' records retention policies might prevent institutions
from providing these data for all years required by the ACTS
collection. In evaluating the potential impact of this issue, the
Department sought to identify which aspects of the ACTS collection
might be affected by statutory or regulatory requirements related to
records retention. The Department determined that such requirements
might result in some institutions being unable to report data related
to federal student aid awards made four or more years prior to the
current financial aid year. In this case, this meant that financial aid
data might be available for only the 2025-26, 2024-25, 2023-24, and
2022-23 school years--placing potentially important contextual data for
2021-22 admissions ``at risk'' of being unreportable. That these and
other important data might be lost should ACTS implementation not occur
as part of the 2025-26 cycle further reinforced the Department's
rationale that ACTS should proceed as planned.
Data Elements and Quality Assurance
IPEDS data are currently collected and processed by RTI
International (RTI), which has participated in the IPEDS data
collection for more than 20 years. (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment
Responses at page 13, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). RTI supports the ACTS
collection by providing tools to permit institutions to aggregate
student-level data using either an online aggregator portal or
statistical computing code, collecting the aggregated files in the
IPEDS Data Collection System, performing quality assurance checks on
collected data, generating provisional and final data files for public
release, producing tables and figures based on that data for public
release, maintaining IPEDS websites, and running the IPEDS Help Desk to
provide assistance to institutions. To facilitate the ACTS component,
NCES added new resources to the existing data collection contract with
RTI. This includes funds to support training of staff to answer
institutions' questions during the ACTS submission process and to
respond to an increased number of calls and emails via the HelpDesk.
In developing the contents of the ACTS component, the Department
sought to minimize burden on institutions by building upon longstanding
IPEDS variables and definitions. (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment
Responses at pages 14-15, and page 22); (see: Appendix F FRN 30-day
Comment Responses at pages 6, 7, 16-17, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>), Examples include: (1)
variables on total applicants, admits, and enrollees disaggregated by
sex on the current IPEDS Admissions component; (2)
[[Page 58106]]
variables on 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of SAT and ACT scores;
(3) variables on the number of degree/certificate-seeking
undergraduates awarded aid, as well as the number of first-time, full-
time students receiving such aid, on the current IPEDS Student
Financial Aid component; (4) variables on the number of first-time,
full-time students receiving aid by various income levels on the
current IPEDS Student Financial Aid component; (5) variables on degrees
conferred on the current IPEDS Completion component; and (6) variables
on graduation rates on the current IPEDS Graduation Rates component.
Although the bulk of the variables upon which the ACTS collection
is based already exist within IPEDS, the collection itself is not
duplicative. Indeed, what distinguishes the present collection is its
intentional disaggregation. Disaggregation, including by race-sex pair
and quintiles of admissions test scores, is central to the transparency
goals of the collection itself. As we discuss in more detail below,
absent this level of disaggregation, potential applicants and their
families would be unable to make a data-informed decision about their
likelihood of admission to the school or schools of their choice.
Despite the extensive reliance on existing IPEDS instrumentation,
several commenters to the Department's 60-day notice expressed concerns
about the quality of data that would be generated in response to the
ACTS collection and the Department clarified there are procedures in
place to ensure data quality, including those that will detect and
correct errors in the data (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment
Responses at page 15, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Here, the Department clarifies that there are two distinct quality
assurance steps within the ACTS collection--and that the ``mid-2026''
quality assurance process referred to in its 30-day notice is the
second of the two.
The first quality assurance/quality control step, where the values
of selected ACTS variables are compared to similar, previously reported
values from other IPEDS components, takes place after data are uploaded
by the institution to the IPEDS Data Collection System and prior to an
institution's finalization of their ACTS submission (also known as
``locking'').
The second quality assurance step takes place after the ACTS data
collection concludes and locked data is migrated from the Data
Collection System to RTI's operational systems for processing and
analysis. This second step emphasizes the discovery and correction of
unlikely, implausible, or logically inconsistent data values and
consultation with institutions to co-evaluate the accuracy of submitted
data. Because the ACTS data had not been collected at the time the
Department filed its 30-day notice, and because migrated data would not
be available for inspection until well after the closing of the ACTS
collection, the Department necessarily deferred any substantive
discussion of steps RTI might take in this second quality assurance
step in order to tailor the process to the specific circumstances
uncovered following submission. A complete summary of this second step
will not be available until all ACTS data collected during the 2025-26
IPEDS collection are processed and inspected, anomalies detected,
institutional consultations completed, and corrections (if needed)
implemented. In general, key steps include but are not limited to
quality review of the data prior to migration, testing of migration
routines, developing derived variable specifications, and confirming
derived variables are correctly calculated. These same quality control
procedures are used across all other IPEDS survey components.
Justification of Data Collected Regarding Undergraduate Students
Neither the Presidential Memorandum nor the Secretary's Directive
sought to exhaustively enumerate the specific variables needed to
achieve the goals and purposes of the ACTS component. Rather, the full
enumeration was determined by the Department. The Department believes
that each variable included in ACTS, and each year of data for which
those variables are gathered, are necessary to achieve the collection's
purposes and goals.
As described above, the first purpose of the ACTS collection is
consumer transparency. (see: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at
pages 19-20); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part A Revision 3 at page
16); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>); (see: Presidential Memorandum; <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>). Fundamentally, the Department sought to ensure that
students and families could understand their likelihood of admission--
either through early action, early decision, or regular admission--to
college based upon their (1) race and sex, (2) admissions test scores,
(3) high school performance, and (4) family income. The Department
intends to use the ACTS data to generate a variety of institution-level
admission rate metrics (e.g., the likelihood of admission for a student
in a specific race-sex pair in a specific admissions test score
quintile) where it can do so without risking the privacy of individual
students, in accordance with the Department's longstanding privacy
policies. Absent this level of disaggregation, potential applicants and
their families would be unable to make a data-informed decision about
their likelihood of admission to the school or schools of their choice
based upon their unique circumstances. The contractor responsible for
quality checks is also responsible for the initial disclosure review,
implementing privacy protocol techniques such as suppression of data
that would expose protected information about students.
The second purpose of ACTS, as stated above, is to permit
policymakers and researchers to begin to address longstanding questions
about the role of race in college admissions. (See: Appendix F FRN 30-
day Comment Responses at page 11); (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment
Responses at pages 16, 19, 20, and 21); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement
Part A Revision 3 at page 39); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). This includes additional
contextual information about which students enroll, the financial aid
students receive upon enrollment, and the outcomes associated with
their enrollment (e.g., graduation and degree completion). To that end,
the ACTS collection gathers additional data elements, disaggregated
similarly to those listed above, included below.
Contextual variables provide additional detail about the
demographic characteristics of enrolled students and potential
indicators of their readiness to pursue college-level coursework.
Examples of contextual variables include enrollees' (1) Pell grant
eligibility (a proxy for low-income status), (2) parental education,
(3) need for remedial coursework, and (4) enrollment in other forms of
non-credit instruction. (See: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses
at page 15-16); (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment Responses at page
14-15); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Data on students' financial aid awards once enrolled have the
potential to shed light on institutions' use of them, if any, to shape
the characteristics of their incoming class, (see: Appendix F FRN 30-
day Comment Responses at pages 4-
[[Page 58107]]
5, 14-15, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). Variables related to
financial aid include (1) awards of institutional aid overall, (2)
awards of merit-based institutional aid, (3) award of need-based
institutional aid, (4) award of any form of financial aid, and (5)
total cost of attendance.
Finally, ACTS gathers data that has the potential to provide a more
fine-grained picture of the academic outcomes yielded by institutional
admissions practices. (See: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at
page 15); (see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment Responses at page 14-15);
(<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). Variables related to students' academic outcomes include (1)
graduation rates, and (2) cumulative grade point average. Notably,
IPEDS already collects data from institutions on counts of degrees
conferred that is already disaggregated by field of study and awardee's
race and sex. Again, although these variables already exist within
IPEDS, the ACTS collection is not duplicative because it is
intentionally disaggregated in ways not captured by other IPEDS
components, such as by race-sex pairs rather than merely by race and
sex individually.
Justification of Data Collected Regarding Graduate Students
The Department collects a similar set of ACTS data regarding
graduate student admissions, (contextual data listed above for
undergraduates are not collected for graduate students). However,
unlike undergraduate data, which are collected at the level of the
institution, graduate data are further disaggregated by broad field of
study. The Department does so because it is aware that while
undergraduate admissions are usually a centralized function housed
within a single office, graduate admissions may be separately
administered at the level of a college or Department. As a result,
while an institution may have a uniform set of admissions practices for
undergraduate students, those practices for graduate students may vary
widely across its academic units. The Department believes that the
value of the ACTS data would be significantly diminished for graduate
student applicants and researchers should this potential variability
not be taken into account, and as such requires further disaggregation
by broad fields of study despite the additional burden it may present
to institutions. (See: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at page
17, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Justification for Proceeding Directly to Full-Scale Collection
As discussed earlier, the Department's impetus for aligning the
ACTS component to the IPEDS Winter Collection is driven by several
factors, including a desire to make the resulting data available to
families at a useful point in their admissions decision-making process
and to ensure the availability of time series data that support fulsome
analysis of institutional practice both before and after SFFA v.
Harvard. The Department acknowledges that this is not its typical
practice, which usually presents the first year of any new IPEDS
collection as optional for eligible respondents. However, in this
instance, the Department believes the potential value of the ACTS data
to consumers--and the potential for that value to be lessened should
one or more years of data become unavailable due to records retention
policies--merits variation from typical practice.
The Department believes this variation can be undertaken without
risk to the data collection itself. Throughout the development of the
ACTS collection, the Department has been confident in institutions'
ability to provide high-quality data in response to its request. As
noted above and elsewhere, much of this confidence derives from the
Department's belief that much of the data included in the ACTS
collection are reported elsewhere in IPEDS. (See: ACTS Supporting
Statement Part B Revision 3 at page 5); (see: Appendix E FRN 60-Day
Comment Responses at pages 14-15); (see: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment
Responses at page 7 and pages 16-17); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). These familiar data
elements are not new, and many have been collected for several years,
after having been initially defined in collaboration with IPEDS
stakeholders via the Technical Review Panel (TRP) process and
subsequently refined across multiple cycles of collection (see: The
History and Origins of Survey Items for the Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System, available at <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/pdf/NPEC/data/The-History-and-Origins-of-Survey-Items.pdf">https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/pdf/NPEC/data/The-History-and-Origins-of-Survey-Items.pdf</a>). Similarly, the
Department has been confident in RTI's ability to develop a data
collection methodology that promoted both efficiency and data quality.
RTI is a longstanding partner to the Department in the collection,
processing, and analysis of IPEDS data.
Given the time-sensitive nature of the ACTS collection, the
potential for the value of the ACTS data to diminish should collection
be delayed, and the Department's confidence at the time it filed its
30-day notice that both institutions and the Department's data
collection contractor were prepared to successfully execute upon the
collection's requirements, the Department determined to launch the
collection on its initial timeline.
Privacy Concerns
The Department takes its privacy obligations seriously, including
those based in the Privacy Act and the Education Sciences Reform Act.
As is noted in materials filed as part of the Department's 30-day
notice, (90 FR 50940); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part A Revision
3 at pages 22, 24, and 26, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>), all IPEDS data apart from the
ACTS component are initially collected in aggregate form (that is, the
level of data collected by the IPEDS Data Collection System is a unit
other than an individual student). As part of the ACTS collection, the
Department proposes a two-step data collection methodology. In the
first step, the institution prepares a student-level data file in
accordance with a template provided by RTI which is then either (a)
aggregated locally using statistical code provided by RTI or (b)
uploaded to RTI's aggregator tool to be aggregated within their system.
In the second step, the institution uploads the aggregated data file to
the IPEDS Data Collection System, (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part
A Revision 3 at pages 10-11); (see: Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment
Responses at page 3-4); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
At no time is the Department in possession of student-level data
that it believes constitutes a record as defined by the Privacy Act.
All Department contractors are expected to abide by applicable law and
regulation in the conduct of their work on behalf of the Department.
This includes the contractors' stated obligations to protect sensitive
data and information and Privacy Act-protected information ``from
unauthorized access, use or misuse by its contractor employees, prevent
unauthorized access by others, and report any instances of unauthorized
access.''
Above, the Department outlines its justification for collecting
data at the level of disaggregation required by the ACTS component.
Briefly, the
[[Page 58108]]
Department believes that such data are necessary not only to fulfill
the consumer transparency goals of the collection but also to permit
high-quality research on the effect of SFFA v. Harvard on institutional
admissions practices. The Department acknowledges, however, that the
level of disaggregation sought by the ACTS collection may have the
potential to create novel data privacy risks that are not typically
seen elsewhere in the IPEDS collection depending upon how those data
are made available.
In materials filed as part of the Department's 30-day notice, we
note the need to ``prepare for the circumstance in which small cell
sizes may inadvertently create the opportunity for the identification
of an individual and their circumstances'' and that various statistical
disclosure limitation (SDL) techniques are available to it to mitigate
potential disclosure risks, (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part B
Revision 3 at page 4, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). Also as noted there, the
Department could not conduct a complete risk analysis of the ACTS data
until their collection and processing. Consistent with its obligations
under the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), NCES has no intention
of releasing an ACTS data set to the public or publishing tabular data
from that dataset that have not been deemed safe to release by the
Institute of Education Sciences' (IES's) Disclosure Review Board (DRB).
(see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part A Revision 3 at pages 25-26);
(see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part B Revision 3 at page 4); (see:
Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at pages 10-13): (see: Appendix
E FRN 60-day Comment Responses at page 19); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). In consultation
with NCES, RTI will analyze the privacy risks associated with the
generation and potential release of data files arising from the ACTS
collection. After having done so, RTI will outline steps to be taken to
minimize the risk that any data files that NCES might choose to
release, including (a) public data files that may be made generally
available via the IPEDS Data Center, (see: <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data">https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data</a>) and (b) restricted-use data files issued to qualified
researchers through NCES's Restricted Use Data Licensing Program, (see:
<a href="https://nces.ed.gov/statprog/instruct.asp">https://nces.ed.gov/statprog/instruct.asp</a>), could be used to identify
individual students. Steps may include coarsening of data, perturbation
of data, or other techniques to limit the risk of disclosure. (See:
ACTS Supporting Statement Part A Revision 3 at pages 26, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
That plan will be reviewed by the IES DRB for sufficiency. Once
approved, RTI will implement the plan and submit a record of their
activities to the DRB. Only once the DRB determines the plan has been
faithfully executed and the resulting data are ``Safe to Release''
would NCES do so. (See: ACTS Supporting Statement Part A Revision 3 at
page 26); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part B Revision 3 at page 4);
(see: Appendix E FRN 60-day Comment Responses at page 19); (see:
Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at page 11-13); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
Any statistical outputs (e.g., tables or figures containing counts,
averages, percentages, rates, correlations) arising from the ACTS data
published by NCES, as well as any statistical outputs that might arise
from qualified researchers' use of licensed, restricted-use data should
it be made available, will be separately reviewed for disclosure risk
via the disclosure risk review (DRR) process prior to publication. This
process is designed to minimize the risk that analytic products created
using ACTS data files inadvertently identify individual students. (See:
Appendix F FRN 30-day Comment Responses at pages 12-13, 24); (see: ACTS
Supporting Statement Part B Revision 3 at page 4); (see: ACTS
Supporting Statement Part A Revision 3 at pages 26 and 37); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
The Department has designed the IPEDS ACTS data collection process
to ensure consistency with Privacy Act requirements. As the Department
noted on page 25 of the IPEDS data collection Supporting Statement Part
A Revision 3, ``the data collected in the student-level file does not
contain any Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Institutions
will assign their own ID numbers, distinct from the student's Social
Security Number or institutional identification number, to be used in
the Student ID field.'' (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part A Revision
3 at page 25, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). Pseudonymization
substantially reduces the risk that collected data could be used to
distinguish or trace an individual's identity. Furthermore, RTI will
not retrieve the pseudonymized data by personal identifier; RTI will
only use the pseudonymized data to generate aggregated data and will
destroy all raw data once quality control activities are completed.
Finally, as noted in the Department's response to public comments from
the 60-day comment period, ``NCES routinely implements privacy
protections elsewhere in consultation with the IES Disclosure Review
Board. These protections--which can include, but are not limited to,
suppression, perturbation, and tiered access to data--are designed to
avoid the inadvertent disclosure of information about individuals. NCES
will determine the most appropriate disclosure avoidance approach for
the ACTS data following its collection and implement that approach
prior to any public release of data arising from it'' (see: Appendix E
FRN 60-Day Comment Responses at page 19, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). These steps ensure
that the IPEDS ACTS data collection will not trigger the Privacy Act
by: (1) substantially eliminating the risk that any collected data
could be deemed a ``record'' under the Privacy Act and (2) eliminating
the possibility that any collected data could be deemed to be
maintained in a ``system of records'' under the Privacy Act.
Data Availability
[[Page 58109]]
As noted above, the Department believes that much of the data
included as part of the ACTS component is already reported elsewhere in
IPEDS or, as is noted in the Department's 30-day notice, otherwise
available to institutions, (see: ACTS Supporting Statement Part B
Revision 3 at page 5, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). Nonetheless, the Department
acknowledges that some institutions may be unable to report individual
ACTS data elements or may, due to records retention policies or other
factors, be unable to report one or more years of ACTS data. That this
circumstance might present itself was specifically addressed by the
Department in response to comments from the 30-day comment period: ``As
noted in the collection materials accompanying the ACTS, NCES requires
institutions report only those ACTS data they have available. NCES does
not anticipate institutions collecting new data in response to the ACTS
component. Users should review the codebooks accompanying the
collection to identify the reserve code that indicates a variable is
not available for reporting (e.g., a ``-1'' value).'' (see: Appendix F
FRN 30-day Comment Responses at pages 6-7, <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>). The Department went
on to explain that assistance will be available as needed to
institutions as they navigated the submission process, writing ``[a]s
always, the IPEDS HelpDesk remains available to assist institutions who
experience difficulties submitting their ACTS data.''
Burden Calculation
As is required by the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Department
sought to estimate the burden associated with the ACTS component. To
develop the estimate, the Department first reviewed the burden
estimates associated with existing survey components as outlined in
Supporting Statement Part A Change Package 102925, (see: Supporting
Statement Part A Change Package 102925 at page 33, <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2025-SCC-0382-3465">https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2025-SCC-0382-3465</a>). There, the
Department noted the estimated average institutional burden hours
associated with most IPEDS components ranged from 6 to 9 hours each--
effectively, one business day. The Department then imagined what was,
effectively, the worst-case scenario: rather than taking eight hours to
gather the data needed to complete the most recent years' worth of ACTS
data and manually enter it into the Data Collection System, it took
eight weeks (320 hours). Given the frequent reliance on data elements
used elsewhere in the collection, the Department viewed this scenario
as unlikely. The Department again assumed what it felt was the worst-
case scenario for collecting all required prior years' data: that,
taken together, lessons learned from preparing the first year of data
would only reduce the burden by half (or 160 hours). In total, then,
the Department initially theorized the worst-case scenario for the ACTS
collection was 480 burden hours (60 business days) per institution
using the data collection methodology used for other IPEDS components,
in which IPEDS data are initially collected in aggregate form.
The Department then considered the burden-reduction impact of the
alternative data collection methodology proposed for the ACTS
collection, in which institutions prepare student-level data files in
accordance with a template which are then either (a) aggregated locally
using statistical code provided by RTI or (b) uploaded to RTI's
aggregator tool to be aggregated within their system. Although it was
impossible to precisely quantify the potential reduction in burden the
methodology represented, the Department felt that it was dramatic,
exceeding 50 percent. Ultimately, the Department concluded that a
reasonable estimate of the burden was five weeks (25 business days) of
full-time work (8 hours) each day to complete the ACTS component, or
200 total hours per institution. Notably, the Department's proposed
timeline for the ACTS collection--which ran from December 18, 2025,
through March 18, 2026--included 65 business days. (See: Appendix F FRN
30-day Comment Responses at page 21); (see: ACTS Supporting Statement
Part A Revision 3 at page 32); (<a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202508-1850-001</a>).
The Department's Capacity To Collect and Process Data
As mentioned above, the Department has sufficient resources to
administer the ACTS survey and utilize the results, by primarily
relying on contractors to manage, collect, and process the data for
IPEDS. This has been common practice for the bulk of the years IPEDS
data has been collected dating back to the 1980s. The support of
contractors in substantial data collection efforts is common practice
in the Federal government. Between the current contracting service
utilized by the Department, and another contractor whose services for
IPEDS will overlap with the current contractor for the next year, the
Department will retain support for the services needed to collect and
process IPEDS data.
Matthew Soldner,
Acting Commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics,
Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
[FR Doc. 2026-18735 Filed 9-11-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P
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