The University of California and the California State University
have agreed to release student records to the state despite
original hesitation that stemmed from concern for student privacy.
A state law passed in 1999 requires public members of higher
education to release data to track student progress.
The data will be given to the California Postsecondary Education
Commission, an agency that develops policy plans and advises the
governor and state legislators on public higher education. The UC
already released 30 pieces of information for all students, but
hesitated especially when it came to sensitive issues like social
security numbers, said UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina.
“There were details that needed to be worked out as far as
how the data would be used and how it would be protected,”
Poorsina said.
The UC went to the Department of Education to ensure that the
law did not violate the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act,
which protects the privacy of educational records.
Both the Department of Education and the attorney general found
nothing that would go beyond the bounds of the act, said Murray
Haberman, CPEC’s executive director.
The concern for privacy was addressed by a system of doubly
encrypted social security numbers that will allow the commission to
track the students without having any way of accessing who the
students actually are, Haberman added.
“There is no breach of privacy,” Haberman said.
The commission will use this data to continuously track students
as they go through the higher education system. The records will be
destroyed after 15 years.
“The four-year public segments can be assured that CPEC
will consult closely with them on the use of these data,”
said Howard Welinsky, commission chair of CPEC, in a press release
on the commission’s Web site.
CPEC wants to see how effectively the state is spending the $12
billion a year that goes into public universities and community
colleges, Haberman said.
Welinsky cites an “interesting and not well understood
discrepancy” as one of the questions that they seek to
answer.
“We (California) enroll 13 percent of all students in
higher education, including private schools, UC, CSU and community
colleges … but we only produce less than 9 percent of bachelor
degrees,” Welinsky said.
Welinsky speculated that the disparity may be related to
inefficiency caused by students transferring within the system, but
said they really cannot explain it yet.
The commission will use the data, which includes such specifics
of the major, age, concurrent enrollment and transfer history of a
student to review if students at public schools have different
demands than those in private institutions, Haberman said.
CPEC is composed of nine representatives of the general public,
five representatives of the major educational systems in California
and two students.