A federal judge paused the Trump administration’s demand that colleges report detailed admissions and applicant data, after lawsuits argued the policy was rushed and unlawful. In a preliminary injunction, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts halted compliance for about 200 public colleges in 17 states that jointly filed suit. The decision targets the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS), which would have required selective four-year institutions to submit race, gender, high-school grades, test scores, and family-income data across prior admissions cycles. The Education Department had planned to add ACTS to IPEDS, increasing the reporting burden for institutions immediately. Saylor concluded the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious” and that forcing colleges to comply would cause “immediate irreparable harm.” The ruling keeps litigation active, with the court emphasizing that comments from college officials were allegedly rejected to hit an “arbitrary and unexplained deadline.”