The National Student Clearinghouse’s Role in FERPA (3.5 minutes)
Learn about the Clearinghouse’s role in FERPA.
Transcript
The Clearinghouse is allowed to receive student data from the institutions we work with because of FERPA's school official exception. We serve as the institution's agent, act at their direction, and perform only services they authorize us to perform. In order for the Clearinghouse to release education records, we must maintain the same FERPA compliance as the education institutions we serve do because we're releasing those records on their behalf. That's why before releasing any records, we analyze the disclosure using the following criteria. Is the Clearinghouse authorized to receive and act upon the education records for purposes of making the disclosure? Are we acting as a school official? Has the student consented to us releasing their education records? If the student has not consented, are we disclosing the school record pursuant to an exception under FERPA? Let's look at some examples to see how these questions guide our work across various services. In our transcript ordering service, the clearing house is receiving student course and grade information from the educational institution as a school official. We're performing a function that the school would otherwise use employees to complete. The clearing house is then releasing the transcript to the requested recipient using the students valid consent. So in this case, both the school official exception and the consent permissible use are being used to perform a single transcript order. Now let's look at our enrollment reporting service. In this case, our submission of enrollment information to the US Department of Education's National Student Loan Data System as well as to lenders and student loan servicers relies on the financial aid exception. That's because one of the terms of a student's receipt of financial aid is that the student does not need to make payments on the student loan while the student is enrolled. And our provision of enrollment information is necessary for making sure that happens. How about our degree or diploma verification services? When the Clearinghouse verifies a degree or an enrollment for a requester such as a background screener or a business providing student discounts, our verification services are carefully designed to provide only directory information for students who have not placed a FERPA block on their education record unless the requestor has obtained a valid consent from the student. The same thing is true for student tracker. We only provide directory information for students who have not placed a FERPA block unless the requester has gotten consent. And because our reverse transfer service uses PII to provide course and grade data on students from two and four-year institutions to any 2-year institution from which the student has transferred. We only disclose this information with that students consent. As one last example, let's look at our postsecondary data partnership. PDP collects student data from participating institutions under the school official exception. We produce reports back to those institutions as well as aggregate and deidentified data to organizations, agencies, grant funders, and national initiatives they participate in to fulfill reporting requirements, foster educational improvement, and/or evaluate student aid programs.
