The U.S. Department of Education has sent letters warning some 80 postsecondary institutions that they could lose their eligibility for federal student-aid programs and face fines of $10,000 or more if they do not submit institutional data for the 2002-3 academic year.

Federal law requires colleges to report enrollment statistics, institutional revenue and expenditures, tuition, and faculty-salary averages, among other data, for the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System survey. Known commonly as Ipeds, the survey -- which is composed of about 10 reports -- is the only such central database and is heavily used by federal and state officials to develop higher-education policy.

In an effort to get more institutions to respond with complete information, Congress in 1992 tied completion of the survey to student-aid eligibility. The Education Department has sent out warning letters before, but college lobbyists say the latest round seems to show that federal officials are losing patience with some institutions.

"The law is clear and unambiguous," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education. "It's appropriate that the department is doing this."

In all, about 470 institutions failed to submit at least one part of the survey for 2002-3. Officials at the Education Department declined Thursday to identify any of the institutions, but they said the group was a mix of private, public, and for-profit colleges. In the past, small for-profit institutions were the least likely to submit data for the survey. They said it required too much time and staffing.

The letters, sent this month to 80 institutions, gives them until Monday to appeal the warnings or face a fine for each report they missed. The fines are $10,000 for small institutions and $15,000 for large ones.

"The violations involved are serious," said the letter to one institution. "Compliance with these reporting requirements is an important obligation for all schools that participate in the federal student-aid programs."

Glenn Bogart, a college consultant in Alabama, said on Thursday that he had been contacted by three institutions that received letters, "including a private university that people have heard of, a graduate school, and a proprietary school." All of them had made "honest mistakes," he said.

The data gleaned from Ipeds will become more important only if the White House and Congressional Republicans succeed in a campaign to make colleges more accountable, said Brian K. Fitzgerald, staff director of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, which advises Congress on student-aid issues.

"If the emphasis on accountability increases," Mr. Fitzgerald said, "the handle of enforcement is through the data collected by Ipeds."