The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is marking up the College Transparency Act (S. 2511) on July 30, 2026. If it passes, the bill would lift a decades-old federal ban on collecting student-level data and create a network tracking graduation rates, earnings, and outcomes by college and major — information students currently cannot access for most programs.

Why Today's Senate Vote Matters

If you've tried to find out what graduates from a specific nursing program at your target school actually earn five years out — or what percentage of students in a given major at a given college finish their degree — you've almost certainly hit a dead end.

That's not a gap in reporting. It's the law.

Since 1992, a provision in the Higher Education Act has banned the federal government from collecting student-level data in any way that would make those program-level comparisons possible. The result: the most useful data for choosing a college — does this specific program at this specific school actually work? — is either incomplete, self-reported by the institution, or simply missing.

The College Transparency Act (S. 2511) would change that. The Senate HELP Committee held a markup on July 30, 2026 — the procedural vote that advances legislation toward the full Senate floor.1

What the Current System Gets Wrong

The federal government collects college data through IPEDS, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. IPEDS has a major structural blind spot: it tracks only students who receive federal financial aid under Title IV. That excludes more than half of all community college students, who frequently pay out of pocket or use non-federal funding sources.2

The practical effect is that graduation rates by school and state systematically undercount the students most likely to struggle — and overcount those most likely to finish. A community college that serves working adults with unpredictable schedules looks worse on paper than one that mostly enrolls traditional students, not because outcomes are worse, but because the accounting is wrong.

Even for traditional four-year students, IPEDS can't show you what graduates in a specific major earn. It reports outcomes at the institution level, not the program level. A university can post strong average earnings while a struggling program hides inside those numbers. For students trying to weigh college ROI by major, that's a real problem.

What the College Transparency Act Would Build

The bill — sponsored by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who chairs the HELP Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — would create a Student-Level Data Network (SLDN) housed within the National Center for Education Statistics. The network would collect enrollment, completion, and post-graduation earnings at the individual student level, then publish aggregate results by program.

Privacy protections are written directly into the bill:

  • Student-level records cannot be disclosed publicly
  • Data cannot be sold or used for commercial purposes
  • The network cannot be used by law enforcement
  • Regular independent audits are required

What students and families would actually see is aggregate data by program: how many students complete it, how long it takes, and what they earn afterward. For the first time, a consistent federal dataset would let you compare the same major across different schools.

A House companion bill, H.R. 4806, was introduced by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA). When both chambers advance matching legislation together, it meaningfully improves the odds of reaching a final vote — watch for movement in both chambers this fall.

Who's Behind It

More than 150 organizations have endorsed the College Transparency Act, spanning higher education associations, business groups, and student advocacy organizations.

The American Association of Community Colleges wrote to the Senate HELP Committee on July 27, 2026, calling the legislation "one of the most significant opportunities in decades" to modernize how the country tracks postsecondary outcomes.1

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent its formal endorsement on July 29, 2026, noting that employers cannot make informed hiring decisions without consistent, comparable data on what programs actually produce.3

The bipartisan co-sponsorship is significant. Cassidy and Warren disagree on most education policy. When they're on the same side, it signals unusually broad political support.

What This Means for Students Choosing Now

The bill has not passed. Even if it clears the Senate, the SLDN will take time to build. Students making decisions right now are still working with the same incomplete information.

Do not rely on phrases like "90% of our graduates are employed" in college marketing materials. Those figures are typically self-reported, unaudited, and often count any job — including part-time work unrelated to the student's field of study.

In the meantime, the most useful tools available:

  • Net price calculators — every accredited college must publish one; it gives a more accurate cost estimate than listed tuition
  • College Scorecard — the federal government's existing tool has some earnings data by program for Title IV recipients, though the coverage gaps are real
  • Your state's data system — several states have built longitudinal data systems that already connect college enrollment to wage records; check whether your state publishes this
  • Comparing financial aid offers — what you borrow matters as much as what you earn, so compare net cost alongside outcomes
  • Understanding whether community college makes sense first — the data gaps around community college outcomes make this comparison harder than it should be, but cost differences are substantial and real

What Happens Next

The July 30 markup moves S. 2511 from committee to the full Senate floor. From there it needs a floor vote, a matching House vote, and a presidential signature.

The bill has stalled in prior sessions despite consistent bipartisan support. Opposition has centered on privacy concerns and compliance costs for institutions. Whether this Congress can get it across the finish line is uncertain — but a Republican chair and Democratic co-sponsors working together on an education bill is not a combination that comes along often.

If it passes, students in the next application cycle may finally be able to ask — and get a reliable answer to — the question that should come before every other college decision: what happens to the people who go through this specific program?

Learn more about how to read college rankings and what they actually measure while this data gap persists.

Footnotes

  1. American Association of Community Colleges. (2026, July 27). AACC supports College Transparency Act ahead of Senate HELP markup. Community College Daily. https://www.ccdaily.com/2026/07/with-a-markup-this-week-aacc-supports-the-college-transparency-act/ ↩ ↩2

  2. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2026). Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/ ↩

  3. U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (2026, July 29). Support for the College Transparency Act. https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/support-for-the-college-transparency-act ↩