Spellings Speech Reax

Fairly high-profile coverage today of Sec. Spellings' recent speech on higher education, most prominently the lead above-the-fold piece in USA Today, along with articles in the WaPost, NYTimes, Chronicle, and InsiderHigherEd.

Most of the coverage noted the lack of outrage from the higher education community; after months of rumblings and complaints about the Secretary's reform commission, the various higher ed lobbyists and trade organizations generally struck a conciliatory tone, promising lots of future consideration, dialogue, etc.

Many of the articles zeroed in on the Secretary's endoresment of a federal privacy-protected student-record data system, which has been highly controversial and subject to strident attacks from the private college associations, particularly the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. In fairness to NAICU, they signed onto a statement released by a consortium of major higher ed associations last week that at least promised to consider the issue, rather than simply rejecting it out of hand. That's actually a big step from where they've been. However, they're not exactly leading the way here:

In her speech, Ms. Spellings sought to reassure critics of the proposal, stressing that the system would be "privacy protected" and "would not identify individual students, nor be tied to personal information."

"It wouldn't enable you to go online and find out how Margaret Spellings did in her political-science class," she said.

Critics of the plan, however, remain unconvinced. In an interview following the secretary's speech, one private-college lobbyist said that even if the system could be made secure, privacy would remain a concern.

"This isn't about protecting Social Security numbers," said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "It isn't an identity-theft issue; it's a privacy issue. It's about whether or not, in this country, we want to cross that bridge and create registries of students' academic info."

That actually represents a noteworthy rhetorical shift. Just a few months ago, NAICU was using much stronger language:

"It is ironic that we are considering such an assault on Americans’ privacy and security in the shadow of the Fourth of July, when we celebrate the American values of freedom and choice," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

"This is not a partisan issue," said Rolf Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "It is a matter of student privacy and the security of personal information."

So while the "security" threat appears to be off the table, the "privacy" problem apparently remains.

I'd be the first to say that privacy is an issue of growing concern in this country, both because of the explosion of personal data stored on computers and the unfortunate attitude of some of our national leaders towards issues like individual rights and the Constitution.

But to say that this system crosses some kind of important line in that respect is simply wrong. Electronic records about individual students are already being maintained by colleges and universities themselves. Many state governments are also gathering the information. And the federal government itself already gathers data about individual students for the purposes of tracking things like financial aid and tax credits.

Most tellingly, a great many private colleges and universities--NAICU's constituents--already send detailed individual student records containing Social Security numbers and other private information to huge centralized databased located in the Washington, DC area. That database, maintained by the National Student Clearinghouse, was created by the student loan industry over a decade ago. Most colleges, including private colleges, participate because it saves them time and money in sharing information with lenders, who use the database to keep track of when students leave college so they can start the loan repayment process.

To be clear, I don't have anything against the Clearinghouse--it's a reasonable, limited use of privacy-protected personal data with a spotless track record of keeping information secure. The point is that standing on principle against the simple transfer of individual records to a central location is like trying to close a barn door that was opened about 30 years ago. We're way beyond that, and not going back. The only reasonable approach is to ensure that individual data is strongly protected and sensibly used.