FERPA for Students

What are your rights?

Students have four primary rights under FERPA:

1. To inspect and review their education records.
2. To seek to amend those education records they believe to be inaccurate or misleading.
3. To have some control over the disclosure of information from those education records.
4. To file a complaint concerning alleged failures by an institution to comply with FERPA regulations within 180 days.

Are there any exceptions?

There are five exceptions to education records:

1. Sole Possession Records – Records kept in someone’s “sole possession” and never shared with anyone else.
2. Law Enforcement Records – Records that are created by and maintained by a law enforcement agency for the purposes of law enforcement.
3. Employment Records – These records are not education records unless employment is conditional upon the individual being a student.
4. Medical Records – Records created, maintained and used by professional healthcare workers for the purposes of providing healthcare services. Medical records, however, can become education records when they are used to justify, support, or elucidate some situation connected with an individual’s student status.
5. Alumni Records – Records that are created and maintained by an alumni association, usually for social and fund-raising purposes.

There are some disclosure exceptions. Prior written consent is not required when disclosure is made under the following conditions:

1. To UNTD officials who have a legitimate educational interest.* This includes the following:
   1. A person employed by UNTD in an administrative, supervisory, academic or research, or other support staff position
   2. A person serving on an institutional governing body
   3. A person employed by, or under contract to, the institution to perform a special task, such as an attorney or auditor
2. To schools in which the student seeks or intends to enroll
3. To authorized state and local representatives, subject to the requirements in Sec. 99.35
4. In connection with financial aid for which the student has applied or received
5. To certain state and local officials or authorities, subject to the requirements in Sec. 99.38
6. To organizations conducting studies for, or on behalf of, educational agencies or institutions
7. To accrediting organizations to carry out their accrediting functions
8. To parents, as defined in Sec. 99.3, of a dependent student, as defined in Sec. 152 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
9. To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena
10. In connection with a health or safety emergency
11. Information the educational agency or institution has designated as “directory information”
12. To the parent of a student who is not an eligible student or to the student
13. To a victim of an alleged perpetrator of a crime of violence or a non-forcible sex offense, subject to the requirements in Sec. 99.39
14. In connection with a disciplinary proceeding at an institution of postsecondary education, subject to the requirements in Sec. 99.39
15. To a parent of a student at an institution of postsecondary education regarding the student’s violation of any federal, state, or local law, or of any rule or policy of the institution, governing the use or possession of alcohol or a controlled substance if:
    1. The institution determines that the student has committed a disciplinary violation with respect to that use or possession and
    2. The student is under the age of 21 at the time of the disclosure to the parent.
16. The Solomon Amendment which requires institutions to release certain directory information to military recruiters. (If a confidentiality request was made by the student, then information will not be released.)

*UNTD defines legitimate educational interest as a school official’s need to review an education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibilities for the University.