University of Oklahoma first-year students participate in a student welcome event in August 2023. The lawsuit, filed by a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states, argues that the Trump administration’s fresh reporting requirement on race, gender and test scores could threaten student privacy and unduly burden universities. (Photo by Kyle Phillips/For Oklahoma Voice)
A coalition of Democratic-led states is suing the Trump administration over a fresh federal requirement that will force colleges to report detailed admissions data, including race, gender, test scores and financial aid for individual students.
The mandate is an expansion of a 40-year-old system known as IPEDS and follows a 2023 Supreme Court decision banning race-based admissions. The lawsuit argues that the fresh requirement could threaten student privacy and unduly burden universities.
The Trump administration’s requirement comes after data suggests the Supreme Court’s ruling has already changed campus demographics: At several elite universities, the number of black students has declined, while the number of students of Asian descent has increased at some schools. Researchers say it could take years to fully understand how college admissions patterns are changing.
For about 40 years, the federal government’s primary means of collecting data and information has been: colleges and universities across the United States there was a database called Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).
IPEDS data include information on college enrollment, graduation rates, and financial aid, and some of this data has been used in college and university policies and research.
In August, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing the Department of Education to exploit IPEDS data to track whether colleges consider race in college admissions decisions.
Trump’s directive was preceded by a 2023 Supreme Court ruling Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvardwhich prohibited colleges from directly considering race in college admissions decisions.
The Trump administration is not only seeking demographic data from IPEDS, but is also implementing a fresh reporting mandate for four-year colleges – the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) – to report detailed admissions data such as race, gender, test scores and financial aid levels.
According to the lawsuit, colleges were supposed to begin meeting the fresh reporting requirements this year, with responses due March 18.
A coalition of 17 states, led by Massachusetts, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking to block the fresh mandate. The states argue that the ACTS survey imposes onerous reporting obligations on universities and requires institutions to collect data that they have not collected in the past and that they may not be compelled to disclose for student safety.
The lawsuit said the administration seeks to “fundamentally change IPEDS, transforming it from a credible tool for methodical statistical reporting to a mechanism for law enforcement and furthering partisan political goals.”
States also argue that the fresh requirement is rushed, forces colleges to collect data over months that would normally take years, and creates the risk of reporting errors.
Other states named as plaintiffs include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. It names U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Director of Management and Budget Russell Vought as defendants.
Federal officials argue that additional reporting in the fresh study is necessary to ensure transparency and confirm that colleges are complying with the Supreme Court ruling.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling, the decline in black college enrollment has been greatest in: highly selective private universities.
Associated Press analysis of the 20 sampled colleges found that almost all saw a decline in the number of Black freshmen compared to 2023. At Harvard, the number of Black students dropped from 18% in 2023 to less than 12% in subsequent classes. Princeton’s decline was from about 9% to about 5% black freshmen in the next admissions cycle.
Several universities saw higher numbers of students of Asian descent in the years immediately after the ruling. At Harvard, the percentage of Asian American freshmen rose from 37% to about 41%. Some institutions have seen even greater changes – one analysis showed Asian student enrollment rising from 26% to 45% between 2023 and 2025 at selected universities.
Scientists suggest that A cascading effect more black and Latino students at public universities as admissions to selective schools declines and enrollment in less selective colleges. Data from the fall 2024 college admissions cycles show that overall Black and Latino admissions are up about 8% at flagship public universities.
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at: sequenceira@stateline.org.
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