FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)
Glossary Term:
FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)
Definition
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act or FERPA provides certain rights for parents regarding their children’s education records. When a student reaches 18 years of age or attends an institution of postsecondary education at any age, the student becomes an “eligible student,” and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to the student.
It is a set of regulations that applies to those institutions that receive funding from the Department of Education. FERPA was written specifically for students and guarantees them the right to inspect and review their education records, the right to seek to amend education records, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of information from those education records. Departments may not release non-directory or personally identifiable information about a student to a third party (parents included) without the student's written authorization.
https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/audience/researchers