What does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protect?

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) specifically protects the privacy of student educational records. This federal law applies to educational institutions that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education and grants students certain rights regarding their educational records.

Under FERPA, students have the right to access their educational records, request corrections to inaccurate records, and have some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from those records. The act is designed to ensure that students' educational information is kept confidential and only shared with authorized individuals or entities under specific circumstances.

This protection does not extend to medical records, financial information unrelated to education, or employee records, which are governed by other regulations such as HIPAA for medical records or various labor laws for employee information. Thus, the focus of FERPA is squarely on the rights and privacy of students with regard to their educational records.