FEDERAL PLAN TO TRACK COLLEGE STUDENTS RAISES LATINO CONCERNS

A federal proposal to create a national database by obtaining individual information on all college and university students is expected to be considered by Congress early next year.

The idea is attracting critical attention of some Latino education groups and already generating concern. Such an action, they fear, could lead to an invasion of privacy which has particular implications to Latino students and their families.

As proposed, the concept is simple enough:

The U.S. Department of Education is studying the feasibility of having its National Center on Education Statistics collect individual enrollment and financial aid information for each student in higher education. On annual average, there are some 15.3 million students enrolled.

The proposal is designed to track the students' enrollment, tuition and graduation rates. Now college and university administrators are required only to report these statistics in a summary form, leaving holes in national figures, the department says.

It makes the point that when students transfer from one college to another, they could appear in federal records as dropouts.

The proposal has the potential to affect more than 1.7 million Hispanic students.

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities finds the proposal to have dangers affecting both students and the institutions they attend.

"For students this will mean that they must provide personal detailed information to a government agency without any type of assurance how this information will be used in the future," HACU president Antonio Flores says. "It will also create a real conflict between state rights and federal government rights to get information."

He predicts conflict rising in states such as Texas, where there is legislation in places permitting undocumented students who have graduated from high school there to enroll in state institutions and pay in-state tuition fees.

Hispanics aren’t alone in their concern.

Some of the plan’s foes, among them the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, have already begun lobbying Congress to block the idea. One of their concerns is that information would be divulged that could endanger the status of other family members. Requiring higher learning institutions to report such things as pupils' Social Security numbers could discourage Latino students from seeking an education because they or some family members could be undocumented, opponents say.

While the National Council of La Raza has not outlined its official position yet, ...