Most Colleges Struggled With Federal Data Mandate

A 2026 report found that few institutions possessed the historical data required by a 2025 federal directive.

Updated on Sept. 30, 2026 in College Applications

Bold flat-color editorial illustration of a tiered stone archives building, representing the administrative structure of federal higher education data reporting. — A 2026 report found that less than 20% of U.S. colleges successfully complied with a 2025 federal data mandate, citing major technical gaps. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

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Should the federal government simplify data reporting requirements for local institutions to reduce administrative burdens?

Fewer than one in five U.S. higher education institutions successfully compiled the data required for the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement following a summer 2025 directive. Research published on September 23, 2026, revealed that most schools faced significant technical and administrative hurdles in meeting the new requirements.

Why it matters

The findings underscore the difficulty colleges face in maintaining longitudinal student records, often due to high staff turnover and evolving data-retention policies. This administrative strain highlights a disconnect between federal reporting expectations and the current technical capabilities of many institutions.

Only 17 percent of institutions maintained seven years of undergraduate admissions records, and 28 percent of schools required over 400 hours to complete the survey. Approximately 87 percent of respondents cited ambiguous definitions as a primary barrier to compliance.

The players

Department of Education

This is the federal agency responsible for overseeing student financial aid and higher education policy across the United States.

The Urban Institute

This is a nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, D.C., that analyzes social and economic policy issues.

Association for Institutional Research

This is a professional organization focused on supporting data use and evidence-based decision-making in higher education.

The details

Institutions struggled to reconcile data within the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System portal due to strict validation and error correction processes. Schools cited software changes and staff turnover as reasons for the inability to access historical records required by the government.

The Department of Education issued the data directive in the summer of 2025.
The Urban Institute and AIR published their research findings on September 23, 2026.

Culture Shift

The push for greater transparency follows a period of modernization for the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. This study demonstrates the friction caused when federal regulatory goals outpace the technical and historical data capabilities of the existing academic infrastructure.

The administrative burden faced by colleges may lead to slower application processing times or changes in how universities communicate their admissions statistics to prospective students. Prospective applicants should verify data through university portals, as schools continue to refine their internal record-keeping systems.

The takeaway

Institutions are clearly struggling to meet the intense data demands of modern federal oversight. Colleges will likely need to adopt more robust, long-term software solutions if they are to satisfy future reporting mandates without exhausting administrative resources.