Trump seeks to force universities to turn over admissions data on race
President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the Education Department to begin collecting extensive admissions data from colleges and universities, including the grades and test scores of applicants and admitted students, broken down by race.
The administration’s goal, officials said, is to ensure that schools are not giving preferences in admissions based on race.
The effort follows a Supreme Court decision in 2023 that ruled race-conscious admissions violate the Constitution. Enforcing that ruling has been stymied by a dearth of data, the White House said.
While colleges are not permitted to consider race in admissions, the Supreme Court ruling said applicants may continue to write about how race affected their lives “through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
Trump administration officials argue that colleges are using that as a loophole to consider the race of applicants.
“The persistent lack of available data — paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies — continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice,” the memo states.
The memo directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to expand the scope of schools’ reporting requirements and to “increase accuracy checks” for the data submitted by the institutions. It also directs the secretary to revamp the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, surveys sent to schools asking about tuition, graduation rates and other metrics. The memo says IPEDS is “long-overdue” for technological upgrades.
Institutions that don’t comply with data reporting requirements will face “remedial action,” the memo states.
“The Trump Administration will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education,” McMahon said in a statement.
Institutions will have to report student data broken down by race and sex, covering applicants, admitted cohort and enrolled students, and spanning the undergraduate level and specific graduate and professional programs, McMahon said. This will include students’ test scores, GPAs and other academic achievements.
The Trump administration has sought to force cultural changes in higher education. Columbia University and Brown University have already agreed to report some admissions data to the Trump administration following monthslong disputes over federal research funding.
Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought the race-conscious admissions lawsuit to the high court, applauded Thursday’s move.
“For too long, American colleges and universities have hidden behind opaque admissions practices that often rely on racial preferences to shape their incoming classes,” Blum said in a statement. “This executive order is a landmark step toward the transparency and accountability that students, parents, and taxpayers deserve.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called the effort a cumbersome fishing expedition.
“They’re going to gather a bunch of information and try to make sense out of it,” Mitchell said. “I worry that they’re not going to be able to make much sense out of it, and that all this will be is an increased reporting burden on institutions.”
About 15% of colleges are considered selective, meaning they don’t admit most students who apply, Mitchell said. But the measure includes all colleges that receive federal financial aid, and those schools already stopped asking applicants about race after the Supreme Court decision.
School officials do survey students who are accepted and have enrolled, collecting data for the federal government and for their own understanding of the new class. During that process, the schools can and typically do ask about race, among other questions.
But those surveys are voluntary; students can choose whether to provide their race — and after the Supreme Court decision, fewer did.
“There’s a huge net,” Mitchell said, “and it’s got a bunch of big holes.”
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• Laura Meckler contributed.