Feds Propose National Database of College Students

Dore writes "The Department of Education wants to collect personally identifiable information on all college students, including name, address, birth date, gender, race, and SSN. Privacy is assured. The No Child Left Behind Act, which holds primary and secondary schools accountable prompted this line of thinking. Now colleges should be held accountable. If you made it to college, you were not left behind, and further attempts at monitoring citizens should be."

Unnecessary data!

[Staplerh]

This is bad move by the US Department of Education. Much of this information is uneeded. I quote from the article:

Under the new system proposed by the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education, each student enrolled in college would have a computer record that included name, address, birth date, gender, race, and Social Security number. It would then track field of study, credits, tuition paid, and financial aid received and would follow the student if he or she transferred or dropped out and later reenrolled.

Why does name, address, birth date, gender, race and Social Security have to do with this obstensible goals? An anonymous survey could be effective to gain whatever information they can possibly hope to gain from this system. They seem to be concerned with transfer students, but these could just be tracked without private information being encoded in a databse! This is a rediculous move, and probably just another move for a more complete database of civilian's private information.

Perhaps some staticians could shed some light on what this study hopes to achieve, and why personal data is required?

Re:goal

[drgreg911]

From TFA it sounds like the point is just to make sure that students who transfer from College A to College B are not considered drop-outs from College A. Ostensibly the feds want this information for schools that recieve federal funding to track how well that money is spent.

Re:Foreign Students

[sameerdesai]

Fact is not just questionable ones but all of them. BCIS has something called the SEVIS [sevis.net] system now to keep track of all foreign students. It's like none of them would have a privacy as each of their actions would be tracked. Now they are extending this to all of them. I was a foreign student for a while and take it from me it is a big hassle being asked and monitored each things you do when you just want to have a better education and do something good with your life.

Re:Why?

[Capt'n Hector]

Yes. America has compulsory education all the way through High School (the last 4 years in 12 years of public or private education.)

Re:What?

[shadowmatter]

How about a national database for tracking when everyone uses the restroom. We could put little sensors on all toilets to track how often they're flushed!

There is a prototype here [mit.edu].

- shadowmatter

NCLB is an absolute failure

[mattkime]

I have a friend that teaches in the New York City school district as a teaching fellow. They bring in recent college graduates and assist them in becoming teachers. Why? Because few people want to do the job.

He loves teaching. Through high school he coached younger kids in soccer. He has a rare gift for it.

He hates his job. There aren't books for the kids. There isn't paper for the copiers - unless he buys it. Basically, he has no materials for the majority of the classes he teaches.

His school is being punished by NCLB. They have reduced funding because they have not met minimum test score standards. Why haven't they? Because their students come from poverty and the school itself is underfunded. There are four computers in his classroom - no mice or keyboards, all broken and never replaced. How can you expect the students to be serious about education when you're not serious about giving them one? They know its a joke - they know rich kids go to schools with books and paper and they have nothing.

If you fail to meet minimum testing standards, you are given a bit of money, as any NCLB proponent will point out. This money is for basic math and reading courses. Funding for nearly all other programs is revoked. This means that teachers begin teaching for the test as to try to get their funding back. Teaching for tests is short sighted and ultimately doesn't teach the higher order thinking needed to advance in life.

He is not a teacher but a disciplinarian. He is forced to spend his time with problem students rather than helping and rewarding the good ones.

While NCLB has the nice ideal of encouraging better schools, it ultimate takes money away from those that need it the most. It further emphasizes the lack of access to education that the poor suffer.

This might be semi off topic, but I think people should know waht NCLB is like from the inside.

Re:Why?

[bluprint]

Not really. You can drop out at like 16, which is a sophomore. Right? I never looked into it, but it's something like that.

Re:... Now that Napster is Gone

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Not everybody who turns 18 has to register with Selective Service- OR go to college- so that's not a good indicator of college students.

Re:Privacy problems, yes, but....

[zrail]

Almost all Federal aid for people in college comes as loans, in one form or another. People who get grants are the ones who really need it or they could not possibly afford school, and from my experience they tend to study their asses off.

Re:Take off the Tin Foil and Think.

[marshac]

Legally, they can't disclose your records to ANYONE (outside of the Ed system) unless you give them consent. If you have a scholarship which requires you to maintain a 2.0, you need to provide consent for your records to be released. One of my favorite things to do in college was to cite FERPA to nosy parents who wanted to know their student's grades.... sorry parents, but even if you pay 100%, you're not entitled to their academic record once they're 18, or enter college.

If your college disclosed your records to your parents w/o your consent, sue them.

Before you say "no way", read an overview of the law.

FERPA [ed.gov] From the department of ed website:

"FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level."

"Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record."
Note that nosy parents is not a valid exemption.

Re:Whoah!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Taliban, as well.

Already have this kind of...

[Chanc_Gorkon]

SEVIS is already here. Granted, not everyone will trigger a recors to be sent to INS, but those who fit the terrorist profile we're looking for. Strangely, I find that this seems to violate the fed's own FERPA laws....but I guess they could break thier own laws....

Re:... Now that Napster is Gone

[eightheadsofdoom]

haha, at UNH (and other college from what i hear), the SSN is used for absolutely everything.. you have to type it into a little computer everytime you go to eat (and then the computer scans your hand.. no joke). Logging in to register for classes? Login is your SSN. Taking an exam? results are posted via SSN. Privacy buffs are a little peeved about it, but the university isn't exactly rushing to change things, and the measure usually gets defeated when it's introduced (I think the kids don't like memorizing more than one long number for themselves).

Damn

[panic911]

Well, now I'm DEFINITELY not going to college.

National Directory of New Hires

[Animats]

There's already a National Directory of New Hires [hhs.gov]. This is supposedly to locate "deadbeat dads". Enforcement against employers is weak. But it's there.

Re:National Database for Only Foreign Students

[dunng808]

The national database should be used for only tracking foreign students...

Obviously intended as flamebait, but such a database exists: SEVIS - Student and Exchange Visitor Information System [ice.gov]

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is a web-based system for maintaining information on international students and exchange visitors in the United States. Administered by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

SEVIS is designed to keep our nation safe while facilitating the entry and exit process for foreign students in the United States and for students seeking to study in the United States.

To Americans today, "keeping our nation safe" is synonymous with trusting government to act in our best interests. How have so many failed to learn the lessons so clearly taught by our nation's founders, that the government is the enemy of liberty?

Re:goal

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine that the real purpose is to track foreign students at American universities

As a recently graduated foreign student in the US, I can tell you they already do that. Starting this summer, they required your authorization by the schools (I-20 for F-1 visas and another form for the J-1) to be issued via a a new system called SEVIS. Big PITA for the international student office because they had to reissue thousands of forms, but now everything is computerized, so if you need new I-20 for any reason it only takes a couple of minutes.

As I understand it, this also informs the INS (or whatever they call themselves now) whether you actually registered and a bunch of other things. So they got all that well taken care of. As I understandit, they've wanted to do this for a long time, but it took the WTC attack to give them an excuse for it.

This whole tracking issue is american-only. It is redundant for international students.

And BTW, they already have our fingerprints and all that from our visa applications, and from the firgerprint machines in inmigration at the airports, unique international ID + numbers (passports) and a lot of the things privacy advocates around here love to complain about.

Re:Privacy is assured.

[demachina]

"Last I heard".... Yeah, right....complete FUD on most of this.

Actually it was from the excellent Charlie Rose show on PBSU interviewing a guy who wrote a book on why America is losing its competitive edge, don't remember his name. Charlie Rose does some good interviews, way better than the big networks though he tends to be a little liberal for the right wing nutcases.

If you want I can dig up some references. The guy said applications for graduate schools are way up at U of Toronto and Oxford partially because its a long hard slog just to get a visa to study in the U.S. since 9/11, I think he said it take a year or more now.

The recent election statistics also show the highly educated trend heavily against the right wing nutcases who currently run the U.S.

Anecdotally I've read a lot of posts here on Slashdot, from people who've said they would never think of coming to the U.S. anymore to live, work, study or go to conferences because its become so onerous to enter the U.S., secret dont fly and arrest immediately lists full of bogus names, and there have been to many well documented instances of people being arrested and subjected to various degrees of torture(often after being sent to countries who are good at toture). The one case I remember most vividly was a Canadian resident who was just flying through New York to Canada, who was pulled off a plan and was deported to Syria where he was tortured for a year until the Canadians finally found and extricated him.

Another good one was Cat Stevens, having his flight diverted and being detained as a terrorist, like the guy that wrote "Peace Train" [lyricsdepot.com] is an imminent threat to America. Though now that I think about it someone advocating "Peace" might be a threat to the people who run America these days.

Re:Privacy is assured.

[iopsyc]

Not to cause unnecessary concern, but I work at an association where we maintain a database that contains, among other things, personally identifiable information on all students in a certain field of healthcare. Thanks to the school accreditation process all of the schools in the US must submit the information to our association. Theoretically, anyone of the employees could be bribed (and we aren't even government workers). Essentially, some of this is already being done and no one seems to care, or know.

Re:Benjamin Franklin: wisdom of the ages and natio

[Nimey]

You're only the millionth person to post that to slashdot, wanker.

NSC (National Student Clearinghouse) already here

[ckolar]

To make you all feel a little bit better (or a little bit more paranoid) there already exists a non-governmental organization called the National Student Clearinghouse [studentclearinghouse.org]. Higher education institutions alredy voluntarily submit student information (in keeping with FERPA) -- it looks like the main difference is performance oriented. No classes and grades, and not even complete major information until you receive your degree. It is actually quite useful for institutional researchers -- but those are not the sorts of people that you need to worry about.

Re:Privacy is assured.

[chialea]

There have been a good number of students barred from reentering the US for 6-9 months while their visas were re-evaluated. (Keep in mind that everyone has to go home once a year to reapply in their own country.)

I was at CRYPTO this year (a top-flight crypto conference, held every year at UCSB in california). A student's visa to come into the country to present her own paper was held up so long she couldn't even make it to the conference. Why? Because crypto is apparently threatening, even when it's publically available crypto. (This being the purpose of the conference, after all.)

Lea

Re:National Database for Only Foreign Students

[westlake]

And how do you think the US amounted to anything? Yup, by flounting international copywright and patent law. In the early days, the US ripped technical feats off, and sold un-royaltied literature at cheap, cheap (warez-ed) prices. That is how countries get started.

When the U.S. got started there was no international patent or copyright law. British inventions were protected by export controls with very large criminal penalties.

Dickens argued for copyright protection in his american tour of 1842. This was an industrial America energized by the introduction of steam power, the railroad, and the telegraph. Much of this development financed in London. 1860 would be last year in which the rural population held a bare majority. We are not talking third-world here.

The pirating of foreign works was hurting american authors. Why pay at home for what you can steal from abroad?

Re:Unnecessary data!

[duffahtolla]

Check your nose.

Characterizing it as "Just a few bucks" is misleading. What was at stake was an absolute monopoly on synthetic rubber production in the United States. Walter Teagle was a director of Std oil and also a board member for the American Branch of IG Farben, American IG. Another board member was Edsel Ford.

The cooperation continued for about two years into the war until the major American businessmen decided it was more prudent to cut ties with IG Farben than continue.

Strategic planning between the companies was common place, Even so far as to create a rubber shortage in the US. All for "Just a few more Bucks". The following quoted from http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_stree t/chapter_02.htm

In 1945 Dr. Oskar Loehr, deputy head of the I.G. "Tea Buro," confirmed that I. G. Farben and Standard Oil of New Jersey operated a "preconceived plan" to suppress development of the synthetic rubber industry in the United States, to the advantage of the German Wehrmacht and to the disadvantage of the United States in World War II.

Dr. Loehr's testimony reads (in part) as follows:

Q. Is it true that while the delay in divulging the buna [synthetic rubber] processes to American rubber companies was taking place, Chemnyco and Jasco were in the meantime keeping I.G. well informed in regard to synthetic rubber development in the U.S.?

A. Yes.

Q. So that at all times I.G. was fully aware of the state of the development of the American synthetic rubber industry?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you present at the Hague meeting when Mr. Howard [of Standard Oil] went there in 1939?

A. No.

Q. Who was present?

A. Mr. Ringer, who was accompanied by Dr. Brown of Ludwigshafen. Did they tell you about the negotiations?

A. Yes, as far as they were on the buna part of it.

Q. Is it true that Mr. Howard told I.G. at this meeting that the developments in the U.S. had reached such a stage that it would no longer be possible for him to keep the information in regard to the buna processes from the American companies?

A. Mr. Ringer reported it.

Q. Was it at that meeting that for the first time Mr. Howard told I.G. the American rubber companies might have to be informed of the processes and he assured I.G. that Standard Oil would control the synthetic rubber industry in the U.S.? Is that right?

A. That is right. That is the knowledge I got through Mr. Ringer.

Q. So that in all these arrangements since the beginning of the development of the synthetic rubber industry the suppression of the synthetic rubber industry in the U.S. was part of a preconceived plan between I.G. on the one hand and Mr. Howard of Standard Oil on the other?

A. That is a conclusion that must be drawn from the previous facts.11