Grades a basis for student info release

Jennifer Knight

Monday, Jan. 7, 2002 | 9:56 a.m.

Despite federal guidelines preventing universities from releasing student grades, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas provides one credit company with a list of students based on their grades, university officials say.

A tailored list is printed out each semester by the registrar's office to include only new freshmen from Southern California who have at least a 3.5 grade point average in high school or a score of 22 out of 30 on their ACT college entrance exam, Sue Bozarth, UNLV's director of admissions, said.

The list is forwarded to the university's alumni office to be used in profitable mass mailings for MBNA, a Delaware-based credit card company.

"Is that a violation (of federal regulations)? Yes," Allen Lichtenstein, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said. "This policy needs to be stopped and needs to stopped immediately."

Nevada's two universities and the Community College of Southern Nevada have a contract with MBNA. Mailing lists are turned over by the schools to either the credit card company or a third party so that students can be solicited. In return, the university or college receives a percentage of whatever the students charge.

University system officials are scrutinizing the legality of providing the names, addresses and phone numbers of students and are likely to ask that the practice be abandoned, Tom Ray, the university system's general counsel, said.

In addition, regents will review for-profit dissemination of student information during their next meeting Jan. 24 and 25.

"From a policy standpoint, the best way to do this is to not provide the information to the credit card companies at all," Ray said.

All higher education institutions must comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a congressional mandate that keeps student grades, professor comments, psychological records or any other personal information private.

Those guidelines allow institutions to release so-called "directory information," which can include name, address, phone number, birthdate, birthplace, gender, classification and major. Students involved in sports may also have their height and weight released.

Providing lists of students in certain grade ranges could prove problematic under the guidelines, Ray said.

The marketing of credit cards to students, especially undergraduates, already drew fire from the Board of Regents after one student complained about the solicitation.

"I've got some real problems with them releasing these lists," Regent Steve Sisolak said. "They're telling me the students are aware of this, but if it's on page 890 of the catalog, they're probably not aware of this."

CCSN prints such information in its class schedule on page 101. UNLV's information is placed on page 88 of its class schedule.

Sisolak said UNLV also is soliciting the parents of students, and its alumni lists are being sold to companies other than MBNA.

"I don't care if the lists are being used for credit cards, car companies or water conditioning machines, I've got a problem with the entire practice of them selling lists," Sisolak said.

University officials say they do not sell the lists, but allow the credit card company to borrow them.

"I don't care what they call this, if they are giving this information out for profit, they are selling it," Lichtenstein said.

Both CCSN and UNLV officials say that few students contact the office requesting their names be withheld from mailing lists.

"Do we make it real apparent to students that this is what they need to do to opt out?" UNLV spokesman Tom Flagg said. "Maybe not."

Lichtenstein said that a warning tucked away in the back of a book does not constitute informed consent.

The state's higher education institutions are at odds over what information they release, given the federal guidelines.

For example, UNR's admissions office allows only names to be released as "directory information," while the UNR Foundation has released addresses as well. The names and addresses of undergraduates and freshmen at UNR are not released, unless they are donors, Dan Miles, the university system's interim vice president of finance, said.

UNLV releases more than 47,000 names, addresses and phone numbers of their students and alumni to mailing houses only, university officials said. Lists of undergraduates include students in a specific grade range.

Of the 10,000 names per semester released by CCSN officials, those lists also include gender and birthdate along with name, address and phone number.