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The U.S. Department of Education has proposed adding the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) to IPEDS beginning in 2025–26. This proposal would require detailed undergraduate and graduate student data and raises significant questions about feasibility, burden, and data quality.

AIR in partnership with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), the American Council on Education (ACE), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) are gathering feedback from the community to help shape our comments during the federal review process and to ensure the perspectives of the professionals most likely to report the data are represented in the advocacy efforts of our associations.

To learn more about ACTS, including a summary of proposed metrics, please visit this link.
Please identify your institution’s sector:
Which best describes your institution’s admissions policy for entering students?
Which best describes your area/division?
Which best describes your primary role?     
To what degree are you concerned about the following?
Extremely concerned
Very concerned
Moderately concerned
Slightly concerned
Not at all concerned
Lack of availability of data elements for undergraduate students
Lack of availability of data elements for graduate students.
Challenges reporting unique data disaggregations not previously used in IPEDS (e.g., race-sex pairs, GPA quintiles, parental education)
Data definitions that are unclear or seem to vary from IPEDS surveys.
A high rate of unreported race/sex data on admissions form since students opt out of reporting.
Lack of clear data definitions.
Navigating what student data can be shared between departments (e.g., financial aid office and IR/IE office)
Coordinating across multiple institutional departments and data systems to compile the data.
Insufficient resources/staff given the complexity of the proposed data elements and .
Student privacy concerns due to multiple, granular disaggregations.
The proposed timeline for gathering and reporting the data (the 2025-26 academic year)
The collection of 5 years of historical data
Overall, what are your top data quality concerns for these proposed reporting requirements?
Of the proposed data elements for undergraduate and graduate students, name up to three that will be the easiest, and most challenging, for your institution to report:
Easiest to report
Most challenging to report
Data element #1
Data element #2
Data element #3
Based on what is currently known about ACTS and your understanding of your institution’s data systems, approximately how many hours do you estimate it will take to complete the ACTS collection?
Aside from cancelling it, what specific recommendations would you offer the Department of Education to:
Response
Reduce the burden of this collection on institutions?
Increase the quality of the data within this collection?
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