The General Education Provisions Act of 1974, as amended by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (the so-called Buckley Amendment), provides for privacy safeguards for students and families by setting guidelines for the disclosure of education records and personally identifiable information. The regulations implementing this Act are 45 CFR 99, which were published in the Federal Register on June 17, 1976.
The regulations specifically permit the exchange of student financial aid information between one institution and another and between the institution and the Commissioner.
The written consent of the student or the student’s parent(s) is not required for disclosure to the commissioner or to another institution that requests specific information on a student in the form of a financial aid transcript request (45 CFR 99.31 and 99.35).
The institution or federal office that collects the student financial aid information assumes co-responsibility with the institution that supplies the information for safeguarding the privacy of the information from improper disclosure.
