Our Commitment to Ensuring Student Privacy

Since our inception in 1993, the Clearinghouse has maintained the confidentiality and privacy of records covering more than 80 million students. We are scrupulous in our concern for student privacy and institutional compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

FERPA is a federal law that protects students' privacy rights in their education records. In developing StudentTracker, we consulted extensively with the Department of Education's Family Policy Compliance Office, which administers FERPA. We have also retained the services of a former counsel to the Family Policy Compliance Office. The Department of Education has found StudentTracker (formerly EnrollmentSearch) to be FERPA compliant, you can read a letter from the Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office here.

We are keenly aware that the enrollment and degree data we provide is not Clearinghouse property. It is held in trust for the institutions that have provided it to us and appointed us as their agent. As such, the Clearinghouse will not release any enrollment or degree data except as authorized by the institution which provided the original data.

Additionally, the Clearinghouse recognizes that, as an agent, it must ensure that an institution's FERPA compliance is not compromised or breached. Accordingly, StudentTracker provides that, unless FERPA permits information disclosure without the student's consent, an institution can only identify the student with directory information (e.g., name, date of birth) that the student has not restricted from disclosure under FERPA. Similarly, StudentTracker releases only unrestricted directory information (e.g., school names and dates of attendance) from records received from a student's other post-secondary institutions, unless FERPA authorizes disclosure without consent.

When you use StudentTracker, you must identify the reason for your inquiry, such as:

• Perkins or institutional loan administration
• Financial Aid
• Prior enrollments for pending admissions
• Subsequent enrollments for denied or declined admissions
• Subsequent enrollment of students formerly enrolled at your institution

Asking the purpose of your inquiry ensures that both your request and our response respects student privacy and complies with FERPA. If for example, you're making an inquiry in connection with a student's financial aid, FERPA allows you to enter the student's full Social Security Number and the Clearinghouse to release enrollment and degree information to you, even if the student has restricted release of directory information.

On the other hand, if you are tracking the subsequent enrollment of students formerly enrolled at your institution, you are only permitted to enter unrestricted directory information (e.g., names, birth dates, etc.) to identify current and former students. And the Clearinghouse can only release unrestricted directory information to you.

Even if you are limited to identifying students by their names and birth dates, the Clearinghouse can find their enrollment records at other institutions with a high degree of accuracy. We do this by using a sophisticated name and birth date matching system, coupled with unique identification numbers that we assign to students previously reported by your institution.

StudentTracker automatically prompts you to provide only the data elements appropriate under FERPA for your request type. It will also only provide you with enrollment data at other institutions that is appropriate under FERPA for your inquiry.

As cautious as the Clearinghouse has been and will continue to be about privacy concerns, it is ultimately the responsibility of each institution to ensure that its use of StudentTracker is consistent with its own institutional policies on student privacy and FERPA compliance. The Clearinghouse can assist you and your legal counsel in making these determinations.

Information about FERPA is available on the Department of Education's Web site.