President Donald Trump is expected to take executive action Thursday to expand the type of admissions data given to the federal government from colleges and universities — a move aimed at boosting transparency regarding race-based admissions, a senior White House official said.
In a presidential memorandum, Trump is directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to revamp a longtime US higher education database called the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, which conducts surveys reviewing trends in areas like tuition and fees, admissions considerations, enrollment and financial aid.
The memorandum, the senior official said, instructs McMahon to “expand the scope of required reporting for institutions’ admissions data in order to provide adequate transparency” and to “increase accuracy checks” on that data.
In June of 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission, a landmark decision overturning long-standing precedent that has benefited Black and Latino students in higher education.
But since that decision, the White House official said, there is not enough admissions data available from universities, raising “concerns about whether race is actually used in admissions decisions in practice.” The expanded data, the official said, is expected to verify that.
It comes as Trump is more broadly pushing for policy changes at colleges and universities, including over Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. The Trump administration has heralded multi-million-dollar deals in recent days with Brown University and Columbia University, and it remains engaged in a pair of lawsuits with Harvard University.
As part of the deal with Columbia University, the school agreed to provide the federal government with admissions data showing “both rejected and admitted students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests.” Thursday’s executive action appears to codify that for all other institutions receiving federal funding.
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