Dear FERPA Professor,
I received a question from a financial aid officer regarding FERPA. If a student has requested in writing to have his or her directory information confidential and withheld from any 3rd party, parents included, will the parent still have access to personally identifiable information if they have declared the student as a dependent on their most recent Form 1040?
Thanks for any guidance you can offer,
Trip L. Hops
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Dear Trip,
There are two exceptions to signed consent in FERPA that would apply to your question. The first is the ‘Directory Information’ exception found in §99.31(a)(11) and the second is the ‘Dependent Student’ exception in §99.31(a)(8).
If a student has opted out of directory information, the college may still disclose any information from the student’s education records to the parents if the student is claimed on the latest year’s tax return. The reason for this is that each of the 99.31 exceptions to signed consent have their own specific conditions which must be met in order for an institution to disclose under the exception. In this instance, the "directory information" exception conditions are not met but the "dependent student" exception conditions are, so the institution could disclose under that exception. Note that, just as with the directory information exception, the disclosure is permissible, not required.
I hope this is helpful in answering your question.
The FERPA Professor
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