Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Education is having a difficult time coming up with the rating system for colleges and universities that President Obama broadly outlined a year ago, Bloomberg reports.
• The department is now targeting the fall — months later than previously planned — for revealing a system to grade the more than 5,000 higher education institutions in the U.S. on their graduation rates, student debt levels, post-graduation student success, and other factors.
• So far, the department of ed has held 80 meetings with 4,000-plus participants on the college ratings concept.

Dive Insight:

No matter what system is proposed, a large contingent of higher ed institutions will be opposed. Already, Bloomberg reports, private colleges almost uniformly hate the concept. Much of the education department’s struggle is due to the lack of data for effective measures, according to a former department official. A ratings system is supposed to be established before the 2015-2016 school year, and financial aid allocation decisions would be based on the college ratings by 2018, when a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is scheduled.