Seventeen states filed suit this week seeking to block the Education Department’s new requirement that four‑year colleges submit applicant, admit and enrollment data broken down by race and sex. Plaintiffs argue the agency expanded the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) without following Administrative Procedure Act rules and is imposing an “onerous burden” on institutions. The department says the data are needed to monitor compliance with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling on race‑conscious admissions. Colleges now face possible court orders, new reporting demands and a charged compliance timeline that could force large-scale data pulls and raise legal and privacy questions for admissions offices and IT teams.