The Education Department sent a message to colleges and universities nationwide Thursday: Any that use data released this year by a massive student voting study risk being labeled violators of a federal law protecting student privacy, and suffering financial consequences for it.
The move—and the department’s new investigations into the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement—could impact college student participation in this year’s midterm elections. In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that “American colleges and universities should be focused on teaching, learning, and research—not influencing elections.”
In a letter to institutions Thursday, Frank E. Miller Jr., director of ED’s Student Privacy Policy Office, wrote that “there are a number of enforcement options available to the Department when” a higher ed institution “is not in voluntary compliance with FERPA,” the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Miller said those include “withholding further payments, issuing a cease-and-desist order, and recovering funds.”
On the same day, ED announced investigations into Tufts University, which houses the study, and the National Student Clearinghouse, a partner in the study. Miller’s letter told colleges and universities that any of them that intend to use any “report or data” from the study “this year are advised to wait to do so until the Department has completed its investigations.” It’s unclear when those investigations will be done.
The study’s website says it’s a “study of student political engagement in higher education institutions and a service to over 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities that can use it to understand and improve their student voting rates.” It says it freely provides institutions student voter registration and turnout rates, and it’s “the nation’s only objective study of college student voting and registration.”
In a news release, ED cited “multiple reports alleging that the process of compiling” the study’s data “involves illegally sharing college students’ data with third parties to influence elections.” It went on to say that reports submitted to Miller’s office “allege that students’ personally identifying data is shared not only with the NSC [National Student Clearinghouse] and participating institutions, but also with political organizations which aim to influence elections.”
ED says its investigations “seek to identify how the student data is being shared between colleges and universities, Tufts, the NSC, and any other third parties,” and “whether institutions are following all informed consent requirements under FERPA.”
The department didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions Thursday about what “third parties” or “political organizations” identifiable data is allegedly being shared with. Miller’s letter says “reports suggest Catalist and L2, third-party vendors, share national public voter registration and voting records they collect to be used for the” study, but it’s unclear whether these are the companies ED is concerned about. The companies didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday.
As far back as 2023 and 2024, the conservative-leaning news outlets The College Fix and The Epoch Times wrote articles on reports by a group called Verity Vote that mentioned those vendors and raised broader concerns that the study violates privacy and has a political purpose. In 2024, Mike Lee, a Republican senator representing Utah, took issue with the student voting study, which his office alleged in a news release “compels institutions to hand over students’ FERPA-protected data.” He introduced a bill that would “prohibit students’ private information from being shared without their consent for voter registration drives,” the release said.
The study says on its website that when an institution signs up for it, “they authorize us to receive their institution’s enrollment data, which is deidentified and matched to publicly available voter files. The process and the data are absolutely nonpartisan and protective of student privacy.” It said it “never receives identifiable student data or learns who students vote for.”
A Tufts spokesperson, in response to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for an interview, said in an email that “we are in receipt of the Department of Education’s letter and are currently reviewing it. We have no additional comment at this time.”
The National Student Clearinghouse, in an emailed statement, said it “will cooperate fully with the investigation” and it will “continue to uphold our commitment to compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.”
“As a politically neutral 501(c)(3) nonprofit, our mission is to provide trusted data and services to the education and workforce communities, supporting educational success nationwide,” the Clearinghouse wrote. It said the study “is designed to encourage student civic engagement rather than advance any political agenda, and we are presently reviewing our involvement to ensure the continued integrity and impartiality of our services to institutions.”
The study says that its data is used to “improve civic learning in and out of the classroom” and provides recommendations to “support civic learning on campuses.” The move comes as the Trump administration is pouring tens of millions of dollars into so-called “civics” schools at universities, which many faculty have denounced as conservative-biased beachheads in academe, and into what it calls civil discourse efforts at universities. This week, the president repeatedly called for his party to “nationalize” voting, which is generally overseen by states.