Washington, D.C. — Moments ago, the College Transparency Act (CTA) was reintroduced in the U.S. House and Senate. Co-sponsored by over a dozen Congressional Republicans and Democrats, the CTA would modernize our higher education data infrastructure by making information about a school’s post-graduation job outcomes more readily available, while safeguarding student privacy.

The bill would ensure that vital metrics — including program-level graduation rates, loan repayment rates, and job outcomes — are available to prospective students. Those metrics would also be disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and Pell-status, among other crucial data sets. It would simultaneously protect student privacy by explicitly prohibiting collecting student health records, disciplinary history, immigration status, national origin, and religion. The bill also restricts how other federal agencies can access and use the system, and prohibits using the system to take action against an individual student.

Following the introduction of the CTA, Reid Setzer, Director of Public Policy for Young Invincibles, issued the following statement:

“With the country facing more than $1.5 trillion in student debt, prospective students and their families still have to navigate the choice of enrolling in a college — an investment that frequently costs tens of thousands of dollars — without basic information about the school’s academic quality. Prospective students deserve to know if the school they’re choosing and investing in will give them the skills they need to flourish in the workforce once they graduate. By making measures like graduation rates, loan repayment rates, and job placement after graduation readily available to prospective students, the College Transparency Act empowers them to make an informed decision about where to pursue their education.

Today’s students need a solution like the College Transparency Act to ensure everyone has the information they need to make the best decisions for their families and for themselves.”