Dive Brief:
- A new report calls for lifting the ban on a proposed nationwide database to track college students into the workforce, also known as the federal student-unit record system.
- The report by the New America Foundation criticizes private colleges and universities for invoking privacy concerns in lobbying, successfully, against the proposal, which was first raised in 2005.
- The point of the proposed database would be to develop information on student and college performance, measuring graduation rates and salaries, for example.
Dive Insight:
This database would be a good idea because it would provide information to hold colleges and universities accountable for the money that students, their families and the federal government pour into tuition, loans, and grants. It would be a bad idea — especially now with the invasion of privacy concerns raised by National Security Agency snooping — because collecting and storing student data would be risky and intrusive.
In one corner is the report, “College Blackout: How the Higher Education Lobby Fought to Keep Students in the Dark,” sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation. In the other corner is the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which backed the ban on the database that Congress passed in 2008.
Some public college groups support the database idea, including the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Meanwhile, hovering in the background of this debate, is President Obama’s idea for the ratings system to judge college performance and allocate federal financial aid.