The educational experiences and financial aid information of students in colleges nationwide could be subject to detailed government scrutiny under a proposed new data collection system being considered by the U.S. Department of Education.

Department officials announced last year that they were developing plans to scrap the current data collection system, known as the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, which gathers information about colleges’ students and faculties as aggregate groups. The proposed system would redefine how educational data is collected, requiring every college and university in the country to submit detailed information on each student.

Under current Department of Education proposals, colleges could be required to report data that includes students’ social security numbers, home addresses, tuition bills, degree plans, loans and federal, state and institutional grants. This system would require congressional funding and approval.

Proponents of the new database argue that it is necessary to ensure accountability among institutes of higher education and keep track of the actual cost of attending college, taking all types of financial aid into account.

Privacy groups and higher education organizations, however, have harshly criticized the proposed database, claiming that it would violate students’ privacy and require some schools to expend much-needed funds to renovate their data reporting systems.

“We object strongly to this,” Scott Fleming, Georgetown’s assistant to the president for federal relations, said. “History shows that when government agencies have information, other agencies seek to use that information for other purposes. That’s human nature, and it’s certainly bureaucratic nature.”

Fleming also said that it would be “highly risky” for students’ social security numbers to be linked to in-depth financial and personal information in the proposed database. He criticized the plan as a “one-size-fits-all solution” to a problem that varies widely among different universities.

The administration is also concerned about the cost of putting the new reporting system in place, Fleming said, especially when Georgetown is spending more of its own funds each year to maintain its “need-based” financial aid policy of meeting each student’s demonstrated financial need as their federal aid declines.

Mike McGuire, executive director of the Office of Planning and Institutional Research, served as co-chair of a November review panel of government administrators and officials from various universities. He emphasized the significance of the database issue for students, parents and administrators alike.

“This is a complex and rapidly evolving set of issues about which students should be informed and, I believe, concerned,” McGuire said.

A draft summary of the meetings McGuire co-chaired at the Hyatt hotel in Arlington, Va., reveals an often-heated discussion of student privacy, financial aid, computer technology and the need for more extensive student data.

“The federal government has a very compelling interest in net price and prices charged to students and parents,” Dennis Carroll, an associate commissioner at the National Center for Education Statistics, said, according to the summary. Carroll and other NCES administrators argued that Congress requires more accurate information about the actual costs of college – including the amount of financial aid each student receives – in order to draft meaningful and useful federal student aid policies.

Many federal officials have said that the current aggregate information gathered by the IPEDS system is unable to provide the in-depth, practical information about the costs of attending college that Congress needs.

Other panelists, particularly those from private universities, objected strongly to what they said was the program’s potential to invade students’ private information.

“All they have to do is pass another law and [the Department of] Homeland Security will have it all,” Professor Pat DeWitt of Georgia’s Shorter College said. Another panelist, Anne Horowitz, from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Penn., said that she would strongly object to the government keeping track of the financial and personal information of her 18-year-old son.

Some panelists were also concerned that the use of social security numbers to coordinate and track students’ information could create a risk of identity theft, while others assured the panel that student information would be extensively secured and protected.

McGuire cautioned, however, that the debate over the issue is continually being reframed and reshaped, even in the past few months since the review board met.

The government is still in the process of developing the system that would gather the data. Department of Education officials will likely ask Congress to approve the measure sometime this year, perhaps when Congress considers the pending reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the massive law that governs most financial aid programs for U.S. students and colleges.

Some students said they were concerned about the privacy implications of the proposed new database.

“I feel like they would need to tell use exactly how they’re going to use that information,” Nora Gilligan (NHS ’06) said. “I don’t see what benefit we would get from it.”