What is the cost of collecting information? College campuses, the U.S. Department of Education, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Eagle Forum, the Education Trust, the Free Congress Foundation, the American Council on Education, the State Higher Education Executive Officers, and the Liberty Coalition, among others are battling with this issue. And so is every college in the country. The battle is taking place in two forums. One is over a U.S. Department of Education proposal to create a comprehensive database that would include every college student. It is also proposing a K-12 data base, codenamed EDEN. The other is a rash of hacked college databases that has put at risk private information on hundreds of thousands of students, staff, donors, alumni, and others.
Crossposted at unbossed http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=135
First, the rash of thefts. It's not just ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, and government contractors who can't keep data private and secure. It may be your alma mater. In just the last six months colleges across the country, large and small, private and public, have reported thefts of data. The list includes (number at risk in parentheses) University of Kansas (refuse to say), George Mason University (30,000), Boston College (more than 100,000), California State University at Chico (59,000), Northwestern University (21,000), Tufts University (106,000), and the University of California at San Francisco (7,000), University of California at Berkeley (98,000), University of California at Davis (1,100), University of Nevada at Las Vegas (5,000), University of Northern Iowa (1,500), Carnegie Mellon University (5,000), New Mexico State University (5,000), University of Mississippi (700).
Dan Carnevale, Why Can't Colleges Hold On to Their Data? (May 6, 2005)
The question I would like to pose for discussion is: What is the cost of those thefts? We know it costs the individuals whose identities are stolen angst, time, and money over years to take back their identities and repair the damage. But when data is stolen there must also be a social cost.
Database Wars - The Big Questions: Against this background, a battle is taking place within the Republican Party and its natural constituents and across higher education over a Department of Education proposal to create two national student data bases. Both would be tied to measuring accountability for student performance. One, named EDEN, is to establish
a main database for Department K-12 data, including those data mandated for collection by the No Child Left Behind Act. This central database, the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN), is an electronic exchange system for performance information on federal K-12 education programs. It will have data analysis and reporting capabilities, which will allow users to obtain information about the status and progress of education in the States, districts, and schools. ED consultants have continued to analyze EDEN's current internal business processes and develop guidance for a smooth transition to a data-rich performance-based environment.
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/sas/pbdmi/eden/projectupdates.html
Some higher-education associations want to strengthen the government's ability to measure how effective colleges are in graduating students, especially minority and needy students, whose drop out rates have increased as tuition rates have increased. The Education Trust, Hearing on Providing Quality Postsecondary Education: Access and Accountability. Data base advocates argue that lawmakers can't attack colleges for lacking accountability, while opposing efforts to create a reliable database to measure accountability.
Opponents are concerned about privacy. They point to the increasing ability to data mine and the inevitable use of information for purposes not intended and not foreseen. In support of their position, they point to the problem that now exists with security breaches on campus, as well as more well covered stories involving ChoicePoint and LexisNexis.
The U.S. Education Department is considering a proposal to begin tracking the educational progress of every college student as part of an overhaul of the database it uses to calculate higher-education statistics.
Current System
Information that colleges report to the Education Department in summary form:
* Enrollment figures of full- and part-time students, broken down by level of study and by race, ethnicity, and gender
* Number of degrees awarded each year, broken down by race, ethnicity, and gender of recipient and by field of study
* The percentage of full-time, first-time students who receive financial aid in a given year, and the average amount they receive by type, such as federal grants, federal loans, state grants, and institutional aid
* The percentage of full-time students in a given class who entered as freshmen and graduated within six years
* The amount of money colleges charge each year in tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, and other expenses
Proposed System
Information that colleges would report to the Education Department about each student:
* Name of student, Social Security number or other type of identifier, address, date of birth, gender, race, ethnicity, and citizenship
* Academic major and degree plan
* High-school graduation date
* Start and end date at the college, and, if a transfer student, date of transfer
* Number of courses taken and credits earned
* Academic level (undergraduate, graduate, or professional-school)
* Tuition and fees charged and total cost of attendance
* In-state or out-of-state, full- or part-time student
* Dependency status
* Financial aid received, broken down by federal, state, and institutional grants and federal or private student loans
* Degree granted and date
Stephen Burd, Plan to Track Students Steps Into Political Quicksand (May 6, 2005)
For more stories and links, http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/2005/04/13/news/11379899.htm
http://www.naicu.edu/ National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Concern Builds Over Federal Plan to Track All College Students
NPR story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4605560
http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml
The questions include those above. But in this case, no central database yet exists. So this raises additional questions: Can government develop a system to safeguard private information? And, assuming the answer is yes, should government collect it?