Education Department Files Supplemental ACTS Explanation After Court Remand

The U.S. Department of Education has filed its supplemental explanation of the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS), the step a federal court required when it sent the survey back to the agency in August. The Department published the notice in the Federal Register on September 14, 2026, in response to the remand in Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education (D. Mass.).

The notice lays out the Department's reasoning for the ACTS collection in four areas: implementation timing, the reporting burden on institutions, data quality procedures, and privacy safeguards. On timing, it describes a 2025-26 winter collection running from December 18, 2025, through March 18, 2026. It estimates the burden at about 200 hours per institution, reduced from a higher figure through an aggregated, student-level file approach using RTI International's tool.

On data quality, the Department outlines two review steps: comparing values against previously reported IPEDS data before submission, then flagging implausible or inconsistent data afterward. On privacy, it says the student-level files carry no personally identifiable information, institutions assign pseudonymous ID numbers, RTI destroys raw data after processing, and the Institute of Education Sciences Disclosure Review Board reviews public releases using disclosure-limitation techniques such as suppression.

The notice does not open a new public comment period; it points back to the earlier 60-day and 30-day comment periods. The court had found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on their claim that the ACTS implementation was arbitrary and capricious, and the remand allowed the Department to elaborate on its original reasoning without offering new reasons. As of mid-September, the court had not ruled on the merits.

The preliminary injunction pausing ACTS deadlines for the plaintiff states, institutions, and associations remains in effect. AIR continues to track the case and will report as it develops.