Student Confidentiality

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Albany State University protects students’ rights to privacy, and accords students all the rights under the federal law.

No one outside of the institution shall have access to, nor will the institution disclose any information from students’ education records, without the written consent of students, except: to authorized personnel within the institution, to officials of other institutions in which students seek to enroll, to persons or organizations providing students financial aid, to accrediting agencies carrying out their accreditation function, to persons in compliance with a judicial order and to persons in an emergency in order to protect the health or safety of students or other persons. All of these exceptions are permitted under the Act.

ASU is fully committed to ensuring the privacy and protection of personal information of all student, including those enrolled in distance learning program, and does not share personal information gathered from distance education and/or on-campus/residential students.  However, in some cases, the University may be compelled by the Open Records law to release information, as outlined in the directory information in the academic catalog. 

According to FERPA student rights include:

  1. Right of Inspection of Records
  2. Right to challenge records believed to be inaccurate
  3. Right to consent to disclosure of personally identifiable records (with exceptions)
  4. Right to file complaints of alleged violations of the aforementioned rights.

Students who feel that their FERPA rights have been violated may file a formal complaint with the Office of the Registrar. The complaint must be submitted in writing to the Office of the Registrar at Albany State University’s standard mailing address.

If a student feels their FERPA rights were violated by the AS&R personnel a complaint may be filed to the Office of the Provost, Academic Affairs.

To review further information, visit or contact the Office of the Registrar at Ram Central West (C Building). Or, visit the Web site of the Department of Education FERPA.

RETENTION OF STUDENT ACADEMIC RECORDS (Commonly referred to as Education Records):

The retention period for student academic records is permanent.

ASU FERPA Authorization Form