Colleges and Universities Refusing to Allow Parent/Guardian Involvement is a FERPA Rights Violation
[Image Description: There are 4 intersected curved concrete sidewalks winding through a college campus with multiple scattered leaves on the pavement. There are 4 green grass areas on both sides of each sidewalk. There are 2 black traditional style streetlamps with ornate tops with one that has a blurred red flag attached to its right side, a black sign with its white text blurred, multiple orange and green autumn trees clustered together, and one big building with a brick structure along with a clear blue sky in the background.]
CONTENT WARNING #1: I would like to mention that I am not a college advisor nor professor, high school guidance counselor, or lawyer. All content posted on my disability advocate/teacher influencer page is for educational purposes only with no intent to provide any professional services. Social media should never be used as a substitute for legal advice. If you have any questions or concerns about college life as a high school or college student or parent/guardian, I recommend seeking help from an advisor at the college or university that you or your child is interested in attending or are already enrolled in or your or your child's guidance counselor if in high school. If you suspect that you or your adult child's legal student rights are being violated, I highly recommend seeking help from a lawyer, advocate, and/or education system regulator who is qualified to do so.
CONTENT WARNING #2: Please know that the experiences mentioned in this blog post are based on my own personal experiences with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) violations in my college years. They do not reflect the experiences of all college students and professors and no two experiences with FERPA rights and college overall are exactly the same. Commentaries published on my First Former Buddy Club President influencer page represent diverse experiences. If you would like to submit a commentary, please contact me for information. All experiences are welcome here.
Before I attended Bucks County Community College where I graduated with my Associate's Degree in Early Childhood Education PreK-4, I had a hard time at another school due to discrimination against my differences. The university that I was at told me that they were diversity friendly, but unfortunately, they were not as accepting nor accommodating as they promised that they would be. That was why I transferred to Bucks, which was very healing.
Related Links:
I highly encourage college students of all differences to let their families who they have healthy relationships with be involved in their college lives while also working on building independence since this is a needed life skill, especially when it comes to the workplace. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that allows parents/guardians to be involved in their adult child's college life with the student's permission. To elaborate, the purposes of FERPA include the following:
- "to ensure that parents have access to their children's educational records and
- to protect the privacy rights of parents and children by limiting access to these records without parental consent
- manage misleading or incorrect information
- both custodial and noncustodial parents have the right to access their children's records, the right to seek to have records amended, and the right to consent to disclosure" (Tourette Association of America N.d.)
Furthermore, "when a student reaches 18 years of age or attends a postsecondary institution, he or she becomes an 'eligible student' and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to the student" (Tourette Association of America N.d.). I will speak freely that not all but some college professionals tend to give students and their families a hard time about letting families get involved in their adult children's college lives. It is common for this to happen even with the student's permission and even though it is the law. To elaborate, college professionals will say, "It is the student's choice to let their parents/guardians be involved in their college life because they are an adult." Yet, sometimes when the college student makes the adult choice to let their parents/guardians be involved in their college life as allowed by FERPA, not all but many college professionals will challenge this choice that the student makes by saying, "Students need to advocate for themselves" after saying "It is the student's choice"; however, by law, it the student's choice to let their parent/guardian be involved in their college life because they are an adult and by the student choosing to let or not let their parent/guardian be involved in their college life as the adult, they ARE self-advocating. Again, FERPA is a law. It is a student right. Student rights are never choices or suggestions for nonstudents to follow or not. Student rights are human rights. Everyone is required to follow FERPA at all times just like any other law. Laws should never be dismissed. Acting like this FERPA right does not exist or as if it is optional to follow is dismissive and even illegal. It also makes it look like people have something to hide. It is not anyone else's place to say or make this decision legally protected by FERPA except the student. No one whether that is a professor, academic advisor, other college professional, admissions counselor, parent/guardian, or anyone else can coerce the student into letting or not letting their parent/guardian be involved in their college lives. Violation of FERPA can result in serious legal consequences just like all other laws, and no one should ever assume that these consequences will not happen.
College students of all differences may face productive conversations as well as difficulty with effective communication in several scenarios. To elaborate, people whose disabilities affect their social-emotional skills tend to struggle with communication skills more than some other people. This can appear as not knowing what to say or knowing what to say while being intimidated to say it causing people to go into the freeze or fawn response or struggle to put what they want to say into words. Slow processing speed may also cause them to struggle with appropriate thinking and reacting fast (also known as "thinking on their feet") to people's responses in sticky situations that were unpredictable for them. This can specifically look like not knowing the right additional questions or things to say in unpredictable situations even if they had an agenda with listed questions and statements that they were able to anticipate. They may even realize or be told that they should have said or ask certain things when it is too late or then need to do an complicated series of things in order to get or achieve certain things (also known as "hoop jumping") if they ask later. This hoop jumping is unnecessary and inaccessible. For example, when I was in my last semester at the college that I left
before transferring to Bucks, I was a part time student taking 2 classes and
there was a course that I needed to drop for personal reasons. The university
required students to meet their own advisors or another professor in their
program was an advisor even if it wasn’t their own in person to get them to
sign a form in the event that they wanted to drop a course (FYI this was
pre-pandemic). After my then only class of the day, I went to my program’s
office to see if my advisor was there to sign. They were not there either
because they were out in the field observing students, at the university’s
additional campus, or other personal reasons. Okay, fine, not the issue. I
emailed my advisor who had yet to answer and in the meantime I asked anyone
else who worked there if they knew if my advisor would be in later that day or which
other professors in my program were advisors that were available to sign. This
was an attempt to manage my time effectively; however, whenever I did this I was
replied with lots of “I don’t know”s, ignored with no answer, or sent to the
wrong locations on campus to find someone to sign. I even tried calling people
myself and the person either went to voice mail, or I was hung up on. All of
this caused me to spend my whole day going back and forth between campus
buildings and offices and making phone calls with time wasted causing me to get
no homework or studying done. At this point, I had no choice but to have my
mother get involved. My mother who also works a paid job called my program’s office
and when they answered, she called them out for how this put the cherry on top
(final annoyance that added to an already bad experience) of how unhelpful they
had been to me during my whole time as a student there (now this?!) and
demanded that they find someone to sign. This resulted in my program’s office
immediately finding someone, but when I went to the person’s office for them to
sign, they shamed me for having my mother call, dropping a course, searching for
my advisor, and choosing to transfer. All of this hoop jumping that I had to go
through all day was unnecessary though. I should not have had to spent my whole
day searching for my professor, especially since it prevented me from doing my
homework and studying, which is one of the main essential parts of education. Did
I also mention that this person was one of the reasons why I wanted to transfer
because of past things that they and other people who were supposed to be educators did?
College life should not have to be this way. Not all but some authority figures can be dismissive of the needs of students of all differences instead of providing the student with necessary support. By the same token, not all but some authority figures may have the misconception that people –– regardless of their differences –– disagreeing with them is defiance or disrespect. Misconceptions about student's communication is especially common among college students whose disabilities affect their communication skills if they say the wrong thing. College level authority figures may also believe that students are challenging their authority because they do not like to have their authority challenged. As a result, there can be an imbalance of power that makes it difficult to deal with an uncooperative authority figure. All of these different scenarios can be very unpredictable for anyone, especially if they are a young adult in or outside of the disability community. So, sometimes students of all differences need another adult that they are used to to consult with and/or assist them for additional support when it comes to self-advocacy. In fact, according to an Edutopia article that I read about supporting students in the disability community, "Involving families strengthens the connection between home and school providing students with the consistency and encouragement that they need to thrive" (Sewell 2025).
Related Links:
For that matter, college students should sign legal permission to let their families who they have healthy relationships with be involved in their college lives just in case in the event that concerns such as these arise. While independence is absolutely a very important and needed life skill, college and adulting is hard for everyone, especially in the first years. Overall, parents/guardians are experienced adults and some of them went to college too and since college students are used to them and each other and know them more, they may know how to be supportive along the way along with the people at school. In fact, research studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for working memory, decision making, planning, reasoning, personality expression, impulse control, emotion regulation, moral behavior, and anticipating and adjusting to events in the environment, does not fully develop until twenty-five years old. So, parents/guardians can still provide guidance for learning and applying that independence as well since all college students are still maturing and learning these skills in the beginning of adulthood. They can do this by joining in-person or virtual meetings or phone calls between their adult child student and college professionals along with fading by teaching their adult child essential communication skills even if it means telling them what to say. For example, if I was unsure about what to say when sending or replying to emails to professors or in meetings that I would have with them, I have always asked my parents, "What should I say?". Then, I would say those things in those interactions with my professors without my parents present and I also prepare agendas with lists of things to say and ask, which I still use in the workplace. By parents serving as additional advocates by attending meetings with their adult child regarding sticky situations in college life, they are also modeling effective communication and problem-solving skills, especially when it comes to assertiveness, advocacy, and word finding skills along with thinking on one's feet.
It is okay to still ask for and receive help to continue to grow independence skills even after twenty-five years old. My academically gifted brother and I who are very independent still ask our parents for their opinions and support about many things. Help is also not bad, weak, fixing, curing, or anything to stigmatize. Help is also not the same as babying nor doing things for people that they are currently capable of doing with guidance. Help is asking for and receiving support. In order to be independent, anyone needs to be taught how to do those skills. Adult skills do not just appear the moment a person turns eighteen years old. They develop overtime with consistent and structured exposure. To quote the American poet named Alex Elle, "People can be independent and still need help."
Related Links:
My parents and I were very distraught about what the previous university that I attended before Bucks put me through and I was very busy student who worked part time at the moment with time management challenges and easy fatigue as a young adult. I often tease my mother that she is like my secretary with all of the phone calls that she makes for me when I unable to do so myself in the interest of time. My mother called Bucks to talk to someone from the program that my major was for. My mother was connected to a professor who is actually a well-known professional in the Special Education field. This professor was very supportive and validating of my mother's additional support with my legal consent. My parents have always been very supportive of my and my brother's school lives. Most of my professors at Bucks and my parents were very supportive when I chose to handle school situations independently and when I chose to have my parents involved for additional support.
Did you enjoy and find this post helpful? If you want to see more content like this and my other content about teaching and advocating for the disability community, please follow me on Instagram and like my Facebook page if you have not already by clicking on the hyperlinks below:
Instagram: @firstformerbuddyclubpresident
Facebook: First Former Buddy Club President
Give feedback! Questions? Compliments? Suggestions? Let me know in the comments section below and/or email me at ehoffbuddyclub@gmail.com !
If you repost any of my content to your own page or story, please tag me in the caption and the post and keep my logo visible. Thank you💕
Citations
1. Sewell, A. (5 Mar. 2025). Supporting Students With Special Needs. https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-students-special-needs
2. Tourette Association of America. (N.d.). The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). https://tourette.org/resource/family-education-rights-privacy-act-ferpa/
Comments
Post a Comment