Federal Ethnicity
All colleges and universities in the U.S. are required to collect and report student and employee race/ethnicity according to federal Department of Education guidelines. This briefing paper describes the requirements for collection and reporting of race/ethnicity that have been in effect since December 2007.
Colleges and universities are expected to use the federal methodology for the public reporting of enrollment, degrees conferred, graduation rates, employee counts, and other such standard metrics. Because individuals can identify multiple racial/ethnic categories that could result in duplicated counts, the Department of Education mandates use of a hierarchical methodology, as follows:
- All international individuals are reported in a separate category called “International”. “International” in this context refers to individuals who are not U.S. citizens and are not in permanent resident or refugee status.
- Domestic (non-international) individuals who identify as Hispanic are reported as “Hispanic”, regardless of the racial identities provided.
- Domestic individuals who do not identify as Hispanic but identify multiple races are reported as “2 or more races”.
- Domestic individuals who do not identify as Hispanic and only identified a single race are reported in that racial category (i.e. American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White).
Racial/ethnic sub-categories for students are not considered part of the federal reporting methodology and are used only at the state and UW System level.