More than three dozen higher education associations, led by the American Council on Education, urged the Education Department to reconsider a proposed rule forcing colleges to submit multi‑year admissions and applicant data with disaggregation by race and sex. Groups warned the compressed timeline and scope would overwhelm campuses, produce errors and raise privacy and compliance concerns. Survey results submitted by institutional research offices showed many colleges lack the staffing and systems to collect six years of granular data in the first reporting cycle. Institutions argue the department should delay implementation to provide training and technical assistance; critics also flagged risks that the data could be misinterpreted or misused to rank or penalize campuses. The pushback illustrates tensions over federal transparency demands, data capacity and institutional burden.