CHICAGO - Citing concerns about privacy and cost, a majority of Americans said they oppose the idea of the federal government collecting vast amounts of information about individual college students so that officials can monitor their progress, according to survey results released Thursday by a group representing private universities.
The group conducted the survey after the database was proposed last month in a draft report by the Bush Administration's Commission of the Future of Higher Education. Under the proposal, colleges and universities would be required to submit individual academic, enrollment and financial aid data, which could be used to track every college student.
The information could eventually be linked to students' elementary and high school records and employment status after college, and could be used to guide education policy making at the national and state level.
The database would provide a better picture of college retention and graduation rates, particularly for transfer students, proponents say. The Education Department's current database offers only aggregate college data and cannot track the growing number of students who transfer from one college to another.
Views on the proposal are divided largely along the lines of public colleges, which generally support the idea, and private colleges, which are opposed to it. The U.S. House of Representatives voted earlier this year to prohibit the creation of a database that "tracks individual students over time." The measure, included in the Higher Education Act, has not yet come before the Senate.
"It seems overwhelmingly clear that the public opposes this concept," said David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the group that commissioned the survey and represents about 1,000 private college and universities. "It opposes the notion that merely because a student enrolls in a single course, she or he is thrust into a federal registry ... which may well follow them throughout their lives."
The recent survey of 1,000 adults, completed by Ipsos Public Affairs, found that 62 percent opposed requiring higher education institutions to report additional information to the government. It also showed that people were more concerned about possible abuse of the personal information than they were interested in the possible benefit of greater accountability for colleges and universities.
"It is a massive invasion of privacy," said Rebecca Thompson, legislative director for the United States Student Association. "Just because you enroll in institutions of higher education doesn't give the government authority to have access to that information. This information could be used for other purposes that have no direct impact on higher education policy."
Charles Miller, chair of the commission that drafted the proposal, said a database that can track the progress of every college student would allow the Education Department to better measure a college's performance and would provide more complete information to develop education policies.
