Trump orders colleges to share admission data: NPR

President Trump signed a presidential memorandum forcing colleges and universities to submit broader admission data to the US education ministry. This decision is the last salvo of the fight against administration against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and aims to reveal whether schools always prefer the race in admissions even after the Supreme Court prohibited positive action in 2023.

Thursday’s memo affirms “the lack of available admission data from universities – twinned with the creeping use of” diversity statements “and other open and hidden racial attorney – continues to raise concerns about whether the breed is really used in admission decisions in practice.”

Any college or university that participates in the federal student of student loans is already required to submit certain data to the Department on registration, graduation rates and financial aid. Thursday’s decision would force them to report more details not only on the students they register, but also on those who apply. With this information, the administration considers that it can suppress schools which may still prefer the race of candidates to academics.

Shortly after the release, the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon directed The National Center for Education Statistics is starting to collect additional data from schools on their candidates. “Higher education institutions will now have to point out that the data is disaggregated by race and sex”, according to a ministry’s press release, and “will include quantitative measures of school achievements of candidates and students admitted such as standardized test scores, GPA and other characteristics of candidates”.

“We will not allow institutions to burn the dreams of students by assuming that their skin color is more important than their hard work and their achievements,” McMahon said in a press release. “The Trump administration will guarantee that meritocracy and excellence again characterize American higher education.”

“This is a fishing expedition,” explains Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education (ACE) and former under-secretary of education in the Obama administration. Mitchell says that the department throws “a very large net” and that the overabundance of new data will be difficult to decode because the admissions offices have always considered variables beyond academics.

“This is why we have letters of recommendation. This is why we care if someone has been part of a sports team [or] If they are cellist. Because we want to have a better image of what these figures mean “” says Mitchell. “All [the Supreme Court] said you cannot use the breed as a determining factor, even if they also said that diversity was really important. “”

In 2023, the United States Supreme Court scumped admissions concerned with the breed in higher education, sending the highly selective schools of the nation rushing to a new legal journey to continue to inscribe a diversified student body. Chief judge John Roberts clearly indicated that candidates could still discuss the race in their admission tests, writing that “nothing in this opinion should be interpreted as prohibiting universities from considering the discussion of an applicant on the way in which the race affected his life”.

The recent settlement agreements with Columbia University and Brown University require that the two schools report the breed, color, test results and notes of all candidates. “Columbia can in no case illegally preference candidates depending on the breed, the color or the national origin of admissions,” explains the Columbia regulation. It also prohibits “personal declarations, diversity accounts or any reference of the applicant to racial identity as a means of introducing or justifying discrimination”.

After the Brown’s agreement, which looks closely in Columbia, McMahon said in a statement: “The Trump Administration successfully reversed the decades of awakening from our country’s higher education establishments” and that “budding students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex”.

Out of around 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, a relatively small fraction – around 200 schools – is considered highly selective. It is not clear if the Trump administration would nevertheless require all schools – community colleges for example – to collect and submit this additional data.

Two years ago, researchers from the University of Georgetown organized simulations to see what would happen if the race was withdrawn from university admission. They found that a national ban would decrease the ethnic diversity of students from selective colleges, unless there is “a fundamental overhaul of the college admission system”, which would include the elimination of inheritance and sports recruitment.

In the fall of 2024, when schools hosted their first first year lesson following the Supreme Court decision, registration changes vary considerably between selective schools in the country. Some, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Amherst College, have experienced considerable declines in their share of black students, while others, including the University of Yale and the Princeton University, have seen few changes.

It is not clear to what extent the education department can perceive, manage and analyze what will be a flood of new data – or repress schools that the department thinks that the raising of its admission criteria based on merit. After a series of layoffs and departures, the ministry now has about half of the staff he had six months ago.

“This does not overthrow a switch or does not type something and does not say:” Do it “”, explains Jason Cottrell, the former data coordinator of the Post-Screen Education Office of the Department of Education and member of Local AFGE 252, a union of employees of the department. “It’s going to be greedy, and they no longer have the resources to do so. We all left.”

Elissa Nadworny contributed to this report.