College Transparency Act

Personally identifiable information could not be used for any federal, state or local law enforcement activity, for immigration enforcement, for debt collection, or for anything else that would go against a student or their family.

The system could not hold health or mental health data, school discipline files, K-12 records, an exact address, citizenship or national origin, course grades, entrance exam scores, political affiliation or religion. Those items go to the agency only as school-wide totals.

Neither the Center nor anyone else could sell data gathered for the system, including the public data set. Outside companies could still use the public information the website posts.

You could ask to see your own information and ask for fixes. The agency would have to keep staff on hand for those requests and answer every correction request in writing.

Security rules would have to cover regular audits, access controls, how long data is kept and how it is destroyed, and notice after a breach. The bill sets no deadline for writing those rules.

Current law flatly bars any federal system that tracks individual college students over time. Section 3 repeals that 2008 ban so the new system can be built.

Colleges in the federal aid programs would have to collect and send a record for each student instead of filling in student-related federal surveys. The duty starts five years after the bill becomes law.

Seven agencies would enter data-sharing deals: the IRS, Social Security, the Census Bureau, Labor Statistics, Defense, Veterans Affairs and federal student aid. The matches must happen only now and then, not continuously, and may not build one standing linked federal database.

A free public website would let you compare colleges and single programs on price after grants, typical grant and loan amounts, and total debt. The bill sets no date of its own for the website.

Job rates, typical pay, loan repayment rates and default rates would be posted for each program and credential level, measured right after students leave and again later.

A Postsecondary Student Data System Advisory Committee would be set up within two years. Its members must include the department's privacy and security officers, students, colleges, states and privacy experts, and it must follow the federal open-meeting law for advisory bodies.

The list of what is collected can grow. Adding anything beyond the required items takes advice from the committee, a public comment period, and a finding that the item is needed.

No federal agency could use the data to build a ranking of colleges or an overall federal rating. Single aggregate measures could still be used to hold colleges to account.

Where another rule asks for the same data, one submission to the new system would satisfy both. Student-related federal surveys would be replaced by the student-level feed. The bill orders the agency to cut reporting burden but sets no measure of success.

Willfully disclosing personally identifiable information from the system would be a crime. The statutes the bill points to set a class E felony with up to five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000; the bill sets no penalty of its own. A federal employee convicted of it must be fired.