U.S. Government Wants Detailed College Data

Doofus writes "Apparently aggregate data are no longer enough for the trusty US Dept. of Education, as we can read in this opinion piece Alma Mater as Big Brother in today's Washington Post. As the author, a college president tells us, the governement would require schools "to report all their students' Social Security numbers and other information about each individual -- including credits earned, degree plan, race and ethnicity, and grants and loans received -- to a national databank". And the author counters by pointing out the obvious but real threat of such aggregation: "The creation of a gigantic database containing educational records and other personal data on millions would be a costly and troubling assault on privacy. This information could all too easily be shared with other government agencies or even with the private sector.""

Comments

This article is a bunch of FUD

[4/3PI*R^3]

The Department of Education already collects more information about students than you even imagine.

First of all is the FAFSA. This has become the defacto student financial aid applications. Many institutions have their own financial aid applications but to receive any federal financial aid the person must fill out the FAFSA. All the data on the FAFSA is electronically transfered to the student's institution.

Since federal financial aid can be administered by private banks as well as the government and this aid goes to millions of students in thousands of schools it is an enormaous exercise to track the data. Say hello to the National Student Clearinghouse. Not every school participaces in the NSCH but most of them do because everybody else does. From the NSCH, institutions can BUY your data.

Each year ALL institutions that participate in federal financial aid programs, which is over 90% of them, must respond to the NCES IPEDS data collection. IPEDS is a complete, albeit aggregate, data collection tool but it drills down to such detail that for a small to medium sized instituion it's not difficult to get some good stuff.

Many states have combined student data repositories that the state higher education committe can regularly utilize.

This is just the start. Colleges regularly participate in data exchanges with other institutions. For those who want to scream FERPA right now, remember there is a big loophole called "legitimate academic interest" that allows the institution to use whatever data they so choose.

There is more personalized data about each and every student floating around hundreds and even thousands of institutions that nobody has any control over any of it.

The proposed list of variables the the department of education wants to collect per student can be seen on page 74 of the IPEDS SURS Feasability study.

I work in an Institutional Research office in a major university what NCES is proposing in nothing compared to what is already available.

Re:These guys aren't Republicans

[slughead]

Newt's gaining of power was directly related to the 19% Ross Perot got in 1992.

You going democrat doesn't mean nearly as much as you going off the map. Off the map means they might get you back, democrat means you're in the "Us Vs. Them" mentality and are beyond convincing.

Tactically, everyone should vote 3rd party. the lowest spending increases in 30 years occurred right after the 2nd biggest 3rd party triumph in over 50 years.

Coincidence? Not a chance.

Re:These guys aren't Republicans

[sconeu]

the USA PATRIOT Act, which gave most of this power to law enforcement, was approved under a democratically controlled congress

WTF are you talking about? There hasn't been a Democrat controlled Congress since Clinton's first term!

The Senate at that point was nominally Democratic (50-49, 1 IND, I believe -- Jeffries), but it was certainly not a "democratically controlled congress".

Re:What SSN?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

On a note of that, I've been told that the social security act banned certain uses of the SSN as ID.
Is that really really true?

Yes.

If so, where does it say that?

On the back of your social security card, "Not to be used for identification." At least they used to.

I would love to actually take a university to court and make them change. Why hasn't anyone done this?

Because it only applied to the card, not the actual number.

Read the straight dope about it for more details.

Re:What SSN?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

Even back in the mid-eighties, the fine print on college admission forms stated that you were not *required* to give your actual social security number, and that if you choose not to, a unique non-SSN number would be assigned to you. But then of course, you have two 9-digit ID numbers to keep up with, possibly more if you have psuedo numbers assigned by more than one organization.