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U.S. Government Wants Detailed College Data 78

Posted by timothy from the encroachment dept.
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.""
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U.S. Government Wants Detailed College Data

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  • God bless the Republic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oDDmON oUT ( 231200 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:35PM (#12085404)
    Cause the way things are going, it's damn sure that it's dead and someone needs to be saying the prayers.

  • what?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by josepha48 ( 13953 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:50PM (#12085537) Journal
    why so everyone can have their identity stolen after they graduate from college?

    Its bad enough reading about all these idetity thefts taking place, but when you find out its because someone decided to create this wonderful new database of only info that an identity theif could use.. does anyone else think this is a dumb idea?

    • It's a complicated situation. Every school do things differently. I can't imagine coordinating a single DB for a 1000 schools, foreign & domestic.

      Student A was an undergrad for 2 years got a degree. Student B was an undergrad for 1 year, went to work, came back for 6 years. Got a degree. Took an extra course for a minor. Changed major 3 times etc etc.

      What level of detail are we talking about, just a student with a degree? Schools generally have an alumni list or database internally. Dunno if it

      • Re:what?? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) *
        It's a little easier than that. First, a college can give semesters unique identifiers like "Summer 2004" "Fall 2004" and "Winter 2005", and report which students took which classes which semesters.

        But it gets even easier for the federal government...they need only dictate the format of data sent to them, and let the individual schools figure out the rest. That's part of the equipment and training costs that the artical mentions.

    • hellooooo draft. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @10:57AM (#12088994)
      why so everyone can have their identity stolen after they graduate from college?

      No. So that the US Armed Forces can recruit (or, if you want to be even more cynical, draft) who they please.

      Military recruiting is an an all-time low despite rather large bonuses for signing up, re-enlistment, and so on. If Iraq doesn't wrap up soon, the military will simply run out of people who want to be in the military.

      Rumsfield keeps telling us how they prefer a volunteer military, but if it comes down to "needing a soldier for that gun", they'll put anyone there.

  • Oh dear... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Morlark ( 814687 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:55PM (#12085594) Homepage
    Won't somebody think of the children!
    Nice to see that they're still churning out complete screw-up policies like this. Oh wait, no it's not. Damn. It really saddens me how society seems to be going right down the drain, and the people who are supposed to be preventing this are usually the ones that end up causing it. This situation is a perfect example of why I really dislike the concept of politicians. Lets see, a group of people who desperately want lots of personal power. Uh, hello? Alarm bells ringing!
    • concept of politicians. Lets see, a group of people who desperately want lots of personal power.

      I think Douglas Adams put it best:

      The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

      To summarize: It is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the s

  • and thanks to FAFSA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:59PM (#12085630) Journal
    ...no male who ever got a nickle in loans or scholarships has avoided being enrolled in this database from the get-go and which database is that? The selective service of course.

  • These guys aren't Republicans (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kshkval ( 591396 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @11:04PM (#12085674)
    The people who are recommending this are not interested in your privacy. I recall a time when Republicans stood for a less intrusive government, or they did until they figured it served their interests to do otherwise. I switched my party affiliation from Republican to Democrat this year. Even Newt Gingrich doesn't understand what happened to the GOP. If it weren't for the fact that all the newspapers (except NYT) have rolled over in the face of the constant Bush terror propaganda, this kind of thing would be big news. Scary as fuckin hell.

    • Re:These guys aren't Republicans (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @11:08PM (#12085701) Journal
      I feel the same way about Republicans, but wouldn't moving Libertarian be a more logical choice?
      • maybe... the one good thing that has come out of all this is that I'm looking at all the options, including Libertarian. The move to the Democratic party was as much a symbolic protest as a tactical move.

        • Re:These guys aren't Republicans (Score:5, Informative)

          by slughead ( 592713 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @11:35PM (#12085828) Homepage Journal
          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.
          • Like I said, a tactical move. I might vote third party, but I'm still disappointed in a party I'd held to be a protector of individual liberties, and I doubt I'll ever vote for a Republican ticket again. I want Republicans to know it, for what it's worth. Was I naive to think that any party was a protector of liberties? Yes. I just can't seem to shake off the amazement I experience looking at the overspending, the war, the deterioration of veteran health care, the unfunded mandates, the databases. Was I als
      • i am actually going to enroll libertarian next time i get to the post office, I guess the last straw was the Terri Schiavo controversy and the complete asshattery of the entire party.

    • Re:These guys aren't Republicans (Score:4, Funny)

      by alexo ( 9335 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @09:57AM (#12088369) Journal

      > I switched my party affiliation from Republican to Democrat this year.

      So you switched your affiliation from Kang to Kodos?
      Congratulations... I guess.

    • You want a less intrusive government and you switched from Republican to Democrat? Good grief! There are other [constitutionparty.org] alternatives [lp.org] that still advocate small government, you know.

      • Well, I did mention I was a conservative. So, now I'm looking at the alternatives and trying to keep in mind that I might have to make a bigger leap. Maybe just more involved would help right off, or better informed. But I still delight in telling (select) neighbors in my 12,000 citizen lilttle town that I switched. Around here, putting a Democrat's sign in your lawn is like announcing gender surgery. Perhaps I should just move to France (just kidding)?
    • Well said - so there's at least two of us old time GOPers left that haven't been crushed. Smaller, less intrusive government and greater personal liberty. Now my old party's been overrun by zealots of the Christian right wing, terrorism "chicken littles", and huge corporate interests. Ain't a damn libertarian-leaning Republican left in sight.

      I, too, went Democratic in affiliation this last year, because while I agree with the Libertarians on most social issues, I disagree heartily on their economic plan
      • Mr. Quasi, you have said it so well. So, I suppose it makes sense to switch to the Democratic Party, despite what some of the LPers have said above. I looked at the LP site, and it goes overboard in some areas, altho' I feel more at home there now than I do listening to Tom Delay, for example. Some of the Republicans in our little upstate NY town of 12,000 tried an in-your-face, crush the opposition, you must not dissent or you're a commie approach to zoning and commercial issues and recently got booted ou
  • "Researchers at the Education Department say this mammoth project would give them better information on graduation rates and what students pay for college."

    The Deparment of Education has no problem with taking money out of tax refunds when students have outstanding loans. Obviously, the IRS and Dept of Education are at least acquaintances. After, they're both part of the same government.
  • "Should an institution refuse, the government could take away federal grants, loans and work-study funds from every student at the college, a penalty that would fall on students in need while leaving more affluent students unaffected."

    That's almost like freezing someone's bank account.

  • This article is a bunch of FUD (Score:5, Informative)

    by 4/3PI*R^3 ( 102276 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @11:29PM (#12085807)
    The Department of Education already collects more information about students than you even imagine.

    First of all is the FAFSA [ed.gov]. 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 [studentclearinghouse.org]. Not every school participaces in the NSCH but most of them do because everybody else does. From the NSCH, institutions can BUY your data [studentclearinghouse.org].

    Each year ALL institutions that participate in federal financial aid programs, which is over 90% of them, must respond to the NCES [ed.gov] IPEDS [ed.gov] 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 [ed.gov] 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 [ed.gov].

    I work in an Institutional Research office in a major university what NCES is proposing in nothing compared to what is already available.
    • I think the college President is suggesting that there is an option, in effect, to "opt out" of the federal databases, if only by not applying for or accepting federal student aid. I wonder what percentage of students that comprises, but it still represents a choice. K. Will's intent is to point out a tipping point, something you refute to an extent. Not enough of an extent to convince me that there is a need for the database... or no need to wonder about its purposes.
      • to "opt out" of the federal databases, if only by not applying for or accepting federal student aid.

        Interesting point. Essentially it's analogous to not forcing you to give your SSN to any businesses, but also not prohibiting business from requiring it in exchange for goods or services. As in "it's our money, we can decide what we want in exchange for it."

        There are several problems here:

        1. It's not private money, it's government, i.e. public money. The government is not a private for-profit enterpris
        • Well, your point about public money surprised me, in a good way, tho'. Public money, never thought about it THAT way. On the other hand, I WAS a Republican and believed for many years that some of what I held was all mine and didn't belong to anybody else. I'm not even trying to sound ironic here, but I do feel like I'm waking up from a dream.
          • Well, it _is_ your money; one thing a lot of people seem to forget is that it's not a question of owing the government some inherent debt of gratitude (and cash), but rather of holding your elected representatives and their minions accountable for what they do with your dough.

            Sort of analogous to the point that's often brought up in these discussions--the government does not grant liberties, it is supposed to safeguard them.

            Now back to reality... :-)
      • This suggestion reminds me of commerce clause cases like South Dakota v. Dole. The federal goverment does not have much actual authorty, but they use spending authority to make things happen. They almost always offer states a choice, and the finanical consquances of saying "No" cannot be so severe that the choice is illusory.

        It would be intersting to see what would happen if a school did say no, it would set up a very intersting commercace clause case in front of a court that has been the first in ages

    • Re:This article is a bunch of FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @04:11AM (#12086970) Homepage
      The question, to a large degree, is "Why?" Why are they collecting this data? They stated reason is to get "better information on graduation rates and what students pay for college." However, that doesn't make any sense, as A: agregate information would reveal the answer to that and B: you just don't do a sociological study by polling everyone. Attempting to get data on every individual student in the US is a terribly, terribly wasteful study. Therefore, they must be looking for something different.

      And that is the fear, that the govermnet is fishing for dissidents. Lots of people subscribe to Mother Jones. But subscribing to Mother Jones, majoring in ecology at Berkeley, and flying out to Montana every 6 months? Must be a nut, they go on the TSA grey list. White, rich, and majoring in business administration? Must be OK.

      And that's really one of the major problems with data mining people. It's difficult to make such generalizations without being racist or discriminatory. Even if it is statistically justified, it still goes against a lot of the ideals of this country to say that being Muslim makes you more likely to hijack a plane, or that being poor increases your chances of trying to blow something up.

      There are volumes of aggregate information out there. There are huge repositories of privately-owned data that anyone can buy a piece of. But to have individual histories at such resolution and without stating the real reason you collect that data? It's a little scary.

      Of course, nothing that bad could ever happen here [sfmuseum.org].

      • Will the current administration please repeat after me:

        The United States was never meant to have transparent citizenship. The United States was meant to have transparent government.

        What happened?
        • Will the current administration please repeat after me:

          The United States was never meant to have transparent citizenship. The United States was meant to have transparent government.

          I'm perfectly happy giving all of my data to the current administration. In return, though, I expect they won't mind my installing webcams around the oval office, tapping Bush's phone line, rifling through his financial records, and interviewing his daughters... I mean, unless he's doing something wrong, he's got nothing to

          • In return, though, I expect they won't mind my installing webcams around the oval office, tapping Bush's phone line, rifling through his financial records, and interviewing his daughters.

            Interviewing, huh? Never heard it called that before...

    • 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.

      But there is a difference, they are asking for SSN's. Which are not of much use in aggregrate statistics, so the only rational explanation is they are looking to develop a data

    • 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.

      You know, although I don't trust the Federal Government that much, I wouldn't mind one agency having default ownership of all this data and be responsible for locking down the data sharing and keeping students privacy being intact.

      I always find it funny that people are upset at the federal government for tracking information about them. Hey,

  • What wouldn't be so bad... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kenthorvath ( 225950 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @12:12AM (#12085994)
    ...is if they collected this information, but didn't cross reference it between fields. Let them have my SSN, my majors, etc... but don't let them tie them all together in one big identifying lump.

    • Re:What wouldn't be so bad... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well they are going to, that's the whole point of them asking for your SSN. So they have a key they can use to tie all of the data together. If they didn't want to do that, they wouldn't ask for your SSN.

  • I'm not a historian (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SunFan ( 845761 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @12:23AM (#12086044)

    but governments cracking down on academia sounds stangely familiar to me.

  • What SSN? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @12:34AM (#12086095) Homepage
    How can schools report every students SSN when the colleges are required, by law, not to ask for SSN? Yes, yes, I know that they all DO ask for it, but it seems like this is going from ignorance of the law to intentionally going against it.

    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? If so, where does it say that? I would love to actually take a university to court and make them change. Why hasn't anyone done this?

    • Re:What SSN? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 )
      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 [straightdope.com] about it for more details.
      • Hey,

        I just had this discussion [slashdot.org]. As you say, the "not to be used for identification" part refers to the card itself, as I could not find it in the SSA. However, I believe there is a speech by FDR introducing FICA in which he specifically stated that it would not be used for "big brother"-ish purposes.

        Anyway, I stand by my argument that use of SSN for identification is stupid, and cross-purpose use of this sort of number is a Bad Thing (tm).

      • Re:What SSN? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Kiaser Zohsay ( 20134 )
        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.
  • Sorry sir we cannot provide this mortgage because you do not have the required education requirements that our lender has approved.

    Worse is that it would be legal.

    So a person with a PHD in Astrophysics would get a 5% credit card and someone with just a BA in the same field would get 15%.
    • Ability to pay back the loan is what credit institutions look for, and while there is a strong corelation between income and education, no lender is going to turn down a potentially profitable customer on such an arbitrary basis. Nor would they reduce the profits from credit cards simply due to the holder's qualifications, since highly educated people are prepared to pay the existing rates; where's the advantage?

      "Worse is that it would be legal."

      Doubtful; it would probably fall into some category of discr
    • It's already out there to some degree. When I went to get a car loan, I got a "special deal" from the finance company because I had a degree. As near as I could tell from the paperwork, they didn't care so much what your degree was in or the earning power associated with it. But they did verify the degree, and I got a better rate on the loan for it.
    • So a person with a PHD in Astrophysics would get a 5% credit card and someone with just a BA in the same field would get 15%.
      Considering the job and earning prospects of the typical astrophysics Ph.D., I think you might have that backwards. (The BA could at least get a job as a programmer like everybody else.)
  • Its been a few years though..
    This is how it functions in the UK , All the universitys are state owned and funded to a large degree.
    They collect records to keep track and allow sharing between universitys ,Social security numbers are collected on forms iirc probably to check your not trying to claim benefits at the same time as studying and reciving your grant or loan.
    To me this sounds like a lot of paranoia as im sure its how it works in the rest of the world.
  • you ripped the words right out of my mouth (or, well, Pat Buchanan's mouth [amconmag.com]). Eventually, all democracies commit suicide.

  • Oh good (Score:3, Funny)

    by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2005 @04:56AM (#12087120) Homepage Journal
    They'll probably store it on a laptop [slashdot.org].
  • This is rediculous, I value my privacy. I am starting to get ready to apply for colleges next year and I don't want big brother knowing everything about me and what I do in college. They are propably going to use this to create a terrorist watch list or some stupid list that has no bearing in real life.

    Bring out your tin hats people.

    • don't worry, you'd only get on that list if you studied something only perverts or commies or terrorists or godless traitors would find interesting. I trust you feel better now.
    • If you value your privacy, limit the personal information that goes into your applications.

      Don't give them your ssn or anything else they don't legitimately need.

      Tell your HS not to include your SSN w/your transcript or any other documents they send out.

      G'luck with college. Sleep, Party, Study.
      Choose two.

  • What this proposal actually does is play the now classic "purse string game." The Federal government lacks the authority to require local schools to collect & submit this data. Instead, they condition federal money on it.

    If, of course, we were to simply keep those education dollars in-state in the first place, this wouldn't even come up. The solution is simple, stop letting D.C. have so much of your money.

  • Bull (Score:1)

    by rwven ( 663186 )
    Assault on privacy? Any idiot who has ever worked for any university knows how many reports are sent to state and federal government already... The only difference will be that any huge database with all this information will likely hold LESS information about each student than the current reports that are sent out do. I myself have prepared state database reports which hold 90+ pieces of information about every student who got any need-based financial aid... This is called sensationalism and is no chan
  • Just say NO, and encourage your legislature to just say NO too.

    Perhaps it is time to stop Federalism and go back to the Articles of Confederation. After all, isn't this a classic case of abnegation of the Fifth Amendment?

  • It is the same thing with the Real ID Act of 2005 legislation (HR418) by Sensenbrenner. Section 203 requires that states must participate in the Driver License Agreement (DLA). Also states will be required to keep information on personal information like social security numbers, addresses, and driving record items such as license suspensions, points (both redundant since it is done already) and all other violations (moving, non-moving/equipment, parking) and share them with ofhter jurisdictions. In addition

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