The president’s directive would intensify scrutiny of schools and their admissions process.

According to the White House, President Donald Trump will issue a memorandum Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to require that higher education institutions submit the data necessary to verify that their admissions do not involve unlawful discrimination.

President Donald Trump is forcing colleges and universities to disclose more student admissions data as the White House seeks to crack down on the use of race in the higher education application process.

Colleges have been barred from considering race in admissions since 2023, when the Supreme Court gutted decades of precedent that previously allowed institutions to factor race into their decisions in a narrowly-tailored manner.

But Trump’s directive stands to intensify scrutiny of schools and their admissions process while they’re still grappling with the ruling and their goals of enrolling diverse freshman classes — and it targets tactics schools have used to evaluate a diverse array of applicants based on factors other than race, such as data on their socioeconomic status and personal essays about their lived experiences.

“Although the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students’ civil rights, the persistent lack of available data — paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies — continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice,” said Trump’s memorandum, which was signed Thursday. Trump ordered his administration to collect the additional data in time for the coming school year.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon then announced the National Center for Education Statistics will collect granular data from higher education institutions about the race and gender of their applicants, plus admitted and enrolled students at the undergraduate level and for “specific graduate and professional programs.”

According to the Education Department, that data will also include students’ standardized test scores, GPAs and other applicant characteristics.

Previously, the agency had only collected the racial breakdown of enrolled students, not applicants or admittees.

The White House argued that race-based admissions practices are “unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being.”

But colleges across the country have not been explicitly considering race in their admissions process.

Admissions officials have sought to recruit diverse classes by using race-neutral alternatives, including a holistic review process, considering first-generation status, implementing new financial aid programs and boosting recruitment in different neighborhoods.

“It should not take years of legal proceedings, and millions of dollars in litigation fees, to elicit data from taxpayer-funded institutions that identifies whether they are discriminating against hard working American applicants,” McMahon said in a statement.

“We will not allow institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments. The Trump Administration will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education.”

The president’s proclamation coincides with recent Justice Department legal guidance that said race-based scholarships and programs are likely illegal, including internships, mentorship programs or leadership initiatives for specific racial groups.

The Justice Department also warned that entities that receive federal funding, including higher education institutions, should no longer prioritize “underrepresented groups” for admissions or hiring, especially if they are considering race.

Additionally, the guidance attempts to address potential proxies for race, including asking for “lived experience,” “overcoming obstacles” or “cross-cultural skills” in hiring or admissions, or seeking candidates from specific geographic areas.

“This is probably yet another thing that is going to end up in the courts and the Trump administration doesn’t really have a legal standing here,” said Angel Pérez, the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

“What it does do, though, is it continues to create chaos,” he said. “It continues to create a culture of fear on campuses, and it continues to weaponize the practices that college admission officers use to enroll their first-year classes.”

Several institutions have faced federal government probes over their admissions policies, including one K-12 school in the Washington, D.C. region.

In May, the Education Department launched an investigation into Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school in northern Virginia that has been hailed as a national model for institutions that want to diversify their classes.

The Trump administration also touted settlements with Columbia University and Brown University in July, which included provisions that the institutions would halt the use of proxies for race in their admissions processes — and provide access to admissions and hiring data, including test scores, grade point averages and the race of applicants.

Students For Fair Admissions President Edward Blum, the legal architect behind the race-conscious admissions challenges, lauded the directive as a “landmark step” toward transparency in college admissions.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and when colleges are required to disclose how they weigh different factors in admissions, the American people will finally be able to assess whether those practices are fair, legal, and constitutional,” Blum said in a statement, adding that his anti-affirmative action group will monitor schools’ compliance with the order.

The organization also urged Congress to codify Trump’s directives into law.