Federal college student database slammed; program could potentially track students from grade school to workforce.

THE RECENTLY RELEASED DRAFT report by the U.S. Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education calls for the creation of a "national student unit record tracking system" to collect longitudinal data on college students--and that doesn't sit well with educators.

"This information would be linked to individual students through a unique identifier. It could be potentially tied to information from the student's high school or elementary records and follow the individual into the workforce," said David Warren, president of National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NMCU).

Warren was joined in a July 6 teleconference by David Shi, president of Furman University (S.C.); Katherine Will, president of Gettysburg College (Pa.); Christopher Nelson, president, St. John's College (Md.); Loren Anderson, president of Pacific Lutheran University (Wash.); Ralph Wagoner, president of the Lutheran Educational Conference of North America; Rolf Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities; and Rebecca Thompson, legislative director of the United States Student Association.

The panel discussed the proposal as well as the results of a NMCU-sponsored public opinion survey conducted by Washington, D.C.-based Ipsos Public Affairs. Sixty-two percent of the respondents opposed such a database, while 60 percent also believed collecting this student data is costly and intrusive and does not solve any pressing issue.

"The public is opposed to it, and the House has already shown its opposition in the Higher Education Act. The commission would do well to reconsider [this ideal," said Anderson.

"Such an unfunded mandate from the government to the higher education community for such a record keeping process will pose an onerous burden on higher education," said Shi, noting that the plan contradicts the commission's stated goal of reducing the federal regulatory burden on higher ed. Estimates of the cost to upgrade existing databases to comply with the program go as high as $1 million, but would certainly be at least several hundred thousand dollars per institution.

"Why does the Department of Education insist on pursuing such a database when the law currently precludes it under FERPA, and when the Congress has voted categorically not to go forward with it?" Warren asked. He said the government has a "rapacious appetite" for data, yet it doesn't use the voluminous amount of data already available in a constructive way.

"This is not a partisan issue," Wegenke stressed. "It is a matter of student privacy and the security of personal information."