Exceptions to Student Consent for Release of Educational Records

FERPA allows the institution the right to disclose student records or identifiable information without the student's consent under the following circumstances:

• To authorized representatives for audit of Federal or State supported programs.
• To university employees who are in the process of carrying out their specifically assigned educational or administrative responsibilities acting in the student's educational interest.
• Veteran's Administration officials
• Officials of other institutions in which a student seeks or intends to enroll on the condition that the issuing institution makes a reasonable attempt to inform the student of the disclosure unless the student initiates the transfer.
• Persons or organizations providing financial aid to students.
• Organizations conducting studies for, or on behalf of, educational agencies or institutions to develop, validate, and administer predictive tests, to administer student aid programs or to improve instruction, provided that individual identity of students is not made.
• Accrediting organizations carrying out their accrediting functions.
• Parents of a student who have established that student's status as a dependent according to Internal Revenue Code of 1954, Section 152.
• Persons in compliance with a judicial order or a lawfully issued subpoena, provided that the institution makes a reasonable attempt to notify the student in advance of compliance. NOTE: The institution is not required to notify the student if a federal grand jury subpoena, or any other subpoena issued for a law enforcement purpose, orders the institution not to disclose the existence or contents of the subpoena.
• Persons in an emergency, if the knowledge of information, in fact, is necessary to protect the health or safety of students or other persons.
• An alleged victim of any crime of violence of the results of any institutional disciplinary proceeding against the alleged perpetrator. The information may only be given in respect to the crime committed.
• Schools may disclose personally identifiable information from education records to an outside contractor without prior written student consent if the outside contractor is a "party acting for" the institution and is performing a service which the institution would otherwise have to perform for itself (as in the case of the National Student Loan Clearinghouse for loan verification).
• Representatives of the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for purposes of the coordinated interagency partnership regulating the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).
• FERPA has been amended to permit educational agencies and institutions to disclose personally identifiable information from the student's records to the Attorney General of the United States or to his designee in response to an ex parte order in connection with the investigation or prosecution of terrorism crimes.

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