Bonta Leads Coalition of 17 Attorneys General Urging Education Department to Drop College Data Expansion

Overview

• The multistate letter, filed Dec. 15, asks the Department of Education to withdraw the proposal or delay implementation to allow fuller stakeholder input.
• The plan would expand IPEDS to require race- and sex-disaggregated reporting on admissions, financial aid, and outcomes, including test scores, GPAs, family income, Pell eligibility, parental education, costs, graduation rates, and final GPAs.
• The coalition says the expansion risks student privacy, creates heavy administrative burdens, and is likely to yield low-quality or unusable data, noting NCES did not fix these issues after the first comment round.
• California Attorney General Rob Bonta leads the effort, joined by attorneys general from 17 other jurisdictions including the District of Columbia.
• The proposal follows President Trump’s Aug. 7 directive to scrutinize race-conscious admissions practices, and the Education Department has not provided comment in the cited reporting.