(May 24, 2017 – Jennifer Ortega) On May 16, a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives introduced the College Transparency Act in both chambers of Congress. The Act, HR. 2434 in the House and S. 1121 in the Senate, would direct the federal government to connect data collected by various agencies to help provide students, their families, and taxpayers with reliable information on the employment and graduation outcomes of students at various universities receiving federal student financial aid.
The bill would prohibit the creation of a single database within the U.S. Department of Education (ED), however. It would only authorize the government to link its various data systems to help collect, maintain, and analyze the data. The bill also includes several measures to protect student privacy. Selling the data and access by law enforcement would be prohibited, and personally identifiable information would not be revealed, allowing only aggregate information to be made publicly available. Additionally, the bill prohibits the creation of a federal college ranking or ratings system.
Support for the Act stems from the lack of complete or accurate data on student outcomes. Currently, a significant amount of relevant data is collected by ED or other federal agencies, but the information is not broken down in a manner that makes it as useful as it can be. For example, while data on the graduation rates of various institutions of higher education is currently available, data on the success of students participating in those institutions’ various programs isn’t, leaving prospective students less informed about the quality of the programs in which they hope to participate. Furthermore, current data systems only collect data on full-time, first-time students receiving federal student financial aid, which is a large but limited subset of all postsecondary students. This results in less than adequate information for prospective students, their families, and taxpayers on the success of the institutions students and their families are considering.
While the Act does have bipartisan support, many privacy advocates have raised concerns about the adequacy of its provisions to protect the privacy of the data collected. Additionally, Representative Virginia Foxx, Chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which has jurisdiction over this bill in the House of Representatives, has come out in opposition to a comprehensive, federal student-level data system, which greatly complicates the potential progress of this legislation.
Jen Ortega serves as a consultant to EDUCAUSE on federal policy and government relations. She has worked with EDUCAUSE since 2013 and assists with monitoring legislative and regulatory proposals across a range of policy areas, including cybersecurity, data privacy, e-learning, and accessibility.