Currently, the only records that the government can access on an individual basis are those that pertain to government-subsidized financial aid. Otherwise, schools provide the government with records that address the student body as a whole, without identifying any individual students. These overall records include information about enrollment, graduation rate, tuition and financial aid.
The new proposal would force schools to make data available concerning each individual student, including the students' social security numbers. This information would remain private and confidential and would not be released to other agencies.
The database will enable the government to better assess the quality of higher education and insitutions.
Luke Swarthout '04, MassPIRG education associate, explained that the NCES does data tracking for policy reasons. "Currently NCES wants to compile one massive student registry complete with social security numbers," he said. "There is a legitimate policy reason for wanting this information."
According to The New York Times, the proposal stems from Congress' desire to hold colleges and universities to the same standards to which elementary and high schools are held. Congress could use the information collected to "judge the quality of colleges and universities through more reliable statistics on graduation, transfers and retention," according to The Times.
Critics of the proposal fear that the information acquired, especially social security numbers, will not be completely private. Swarthout complements the NCES' privacy record, but added that social security numbers require special privacy. "NCES has a great track record of keeping things private. But they have not had information so private and comprehensive as social security numbers," he said. "Anytime social security numbers are used for anything other than social security payment there is a security risk."
Swarthout is concerned that the government could change the security protocol for accessing information from the NCES database. "Currently NCES has tight rules regarding information," he said. "But if the government decided that it needed access to that information, they could change the rules of access. You could argue that you would never be totally safe."
In The Times, Jasmine L. Harris, legislative director at the United States Student Association, an advocacy group for students, said that the attitude in this country since Sept. 11 has made privacy even more essential. "We're in a different time now, a very different climate," said Harris in The Times. "There's the huge possibility that the database could be misused, and there are no protections for student privacy."
Swarthout said that the proposal is still in its early stages. "NCES and the Department of Education are doing stake-holding meetings with financial aid officers, lobbying groups from Washington, D.C., representatives from schools and other people [who are] relevant," he said. "As one of the lobbying groups for student interests, [MassPIRG] is part of those discussions and part of the process."
Swarthout said that there are both clear reasons why the database would be helpful and also obvious privacy issues. "There are certain gains and risks," he said. "If anything happens, we want to make sure that students' privacy is protected."
Dean of Financial Aid Joe Case agrees that the possibility of the federal government tracking individual students and their security numbers would have both positive and negative effects. "The fact that a student is applying for financial aid is already available to the federal government," he said. "It would be a step forward in that the government would see individual records. It may be positive, though, in terms of the government being able to plan distribution in a fairer way to institutions. So it's not entirely positive or negative."
President Anthony Marx cautioned against a plan requiring the College to provide such private information. "The federal and state governments do provide us with funding, and we do have their reporting requirements to follow," Marx said. "We try to be accommodating to those requests for information, though we also try to avoid violating people's privacy."