Not sure where to start with FVT/GE and STATS reporting? This AIR-prepared checklist walks institutions through every phase to prepare for the October 1, 2026 reporting deadline — covering the early-implementation ...

A federal court has sent the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) back to the U.S. Department of Education for further explanation, while leaving in place an injunction that pauses reporting deadlines f...

Federal earnings data are playing an increasingly important role in higher education — in federal accountability policy, consumer information, research, and institutional decision-making. The new Student Tuition an...

A U.S. Senate committee has advanced the College Transparency Act (CTA), a bill that would overturn the longstanding federal ban on a student-level data network. The committee voted 21 to 1 on August 5, 2026, to move the...

Below you'll find the complete set of materials from the Program Accountability Reporting webinar: the full recording, the presentation slides, a curated Q&A summary organized by topic, and a list of resources mentio...

A summary of the latest IPEDS Technical Review Panel (TRP 72), IPEDS Data Quality: Practices, Strategies, and Structures to Support High-Quality Submissions, is now available for public review. The comment period remains...

A practical guide for researchers and Institutional Research (IR) professionals navigating the AI-assisted analysis landscapeAs universities increasingly provide access to large language models (LLMs) for faculty, studen...

Every year, Association for Institutional Research (AIR) members are encouraged to nominate themselves or a colleague for leadership opportunities. Yet many members hesitate—not because they lack the qualifications...

Qualitative analysis remains one of the most time-consuming tasks in institutional research. Generative AI tools can quickly synthesize large volumes of open-ended responses, but many IR professionals are understandably ...

Counting students at an institution sounds simple—until you actually try to do it. That’s what I thought when I started my Institutional Research (IR) career. I quickly learned just how many ways a “stu...

I work at the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development as the Reporting and Systems Manager. I help our community make data-driven decisions including implementing new technological infrastructure a...

The 2020s have been transformative for Institutional Research (IR). In previous decades, training an IR analyst to support the fall enrollment census alone may have covered 80% of the job. Today, term snapshots are no lo...

The deadline for institutions to review and confirm their ACTS Quality Control (QC) reports has been extended to August 12, 2026 (previously July 31). Institutions should log in to the IPEDS collection system to review t...

The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) has joined the American Council on Education (ACE) and 72 other higher education associations in comments opposing the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) proposed rul...

Workforce Pell took effect July 1, 2026, extending Pell Grants to short-term job-training programs for the first time — but in its early weeks, many colleges are finding that few of their programs qualify. The U.S....

New federal borrowing limits for graduate and professional students took effect July 1, 2026, under the 2025 budget law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The changes cap annual and lifetime borrowing and end the G...

Trying to make sense of the new STATS and Earnings Accountability rule? This AIR-prepared summary breaks down what institutions need to know — effective dates and early implementation, how the earnings premium meas...

Institutions preparing for the 2026 Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment (FVT/GE) reporting cycle will encounter several important reporting changes as the U.S. Department of Education implements provision...

Introduction: Data as a practical guide for student supportHigher education institutions now have access to far more timely and actionable student data than even a decade ago. The challenge is no longer whether informati...

Have you tried using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini, and been underwhelmed? You might have found the responses generic, hallucinatory, or unusable without significant rewriting. Did you know most la...