With new database, Big Brother could be watching

The federal government is considering a proposal that would create a national database to… The federal government is considering a proposal that would create a national database to collect information on every college student in the country.

The idea, proposed by the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education, has triggered criticism from civil liberties advocates who are worried that the move might threaten the privacy of millions of students.

At present, universities provide information on students only in summary form, including statistics on overall enrollment, graduation and prices. The only statistics that identify individual students to the federal government concern federally financed aid.

The proposal seeks to radically overhaul the current system, creating for every college student a personal computer record that would include the student’s name, address, birth date, gender, race and Social Security number. The record would track students’ progress through higher education, identifying their fields of study, credits, tuition paid and financial aid received.

The current system cannot follow a student if she transfers colleges, instead recording the person as a new student at each institution she attends. Consequently, transfer students appear on federal records to have dropped out of their old colleges.

The new system would allow federal officials to track students through their college careers, regardless of how many colleges they attend.

The American Council on Education and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities have both supported the proposal, but it is opposed by other education organizations, including the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

“An incredible potential exists for confidential information being used inappropriately [under the proposal],” said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. “There is a Big Brother aspect of all of this that concerns us.”

According to Flanagan, officials in some states have announced they would want to match the data on college students against prison records.

In states where data is collected from public universities, Flanagan added, there is pressure to check the students’ data against drivers’ licenses, housing records and employment records.

Congress is expected to begin considering the proposal early in 2005 as part of a periodic reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. If adopted, the proposal would be subject to a pilot study before being applied nationwide.

The Education Department’s overview of the proposal insists data would not be shared with other agencies. The summary stresses that, by law, “information about individuals may NEVER leave [the National Center for Education Statistics].”

But according to Jasmine L. Harris, the legislative director at the advocacy group United States Student Association, the balance between privacy and public interest has been shifting since Sept. 11, 2001.

“We’re in a different time now, a very different climate,” Harris said. “There’s the huge possibility that the database could be misused, and there are no protections for student privacy.”