Becoming a FERPA Designee
A federal law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), affords students certain rights concerning their student education records. Students have the right to have some control over the disclosure of information from the records. Educational institutions have the responsibility to prevent improper disclosure of personally identifiable information from the records.
The student may designate one or more individual to receive student financial information regarding the student’s account. The student must create a 4-digit FERPA pin for each parent and guardian. Parents and guardians who are requesting their student’s financial information by email or phone, must provide their 4-digit FERPA pin and the students ID. If the parent or guardian does not have a 4-digit FERPA pin, our office is unable to open the students account and provide student financial information.
Important: A 4-digit FERPA pin is not the same as an Authorized User. The Authorized User is able to login to the payment portal, whereas the FERPA 4-digit pin is to speak to our office about the student’s account. We highly recommend parents and guardians having both.
Instructions
FERPA 4-Digit Pin
The student needs to grant permission by completing the FERPA Privacy Waiver at ferpa.uconn.edu. The waiver will also let the student decide which departments can speak to the designees. Please follow the steps below with your student(s) to become a FERPA designee:
- Visit ferpa.uconn.edu
- Click “Share My Information“
- Click “Manage Designees“
- Add/Manage Designees
- Assign a 4-digit access code (Ex: Last 4-digits of phone number)
- Select “Student Financial Information” for Bursar access
Granting Access
UConn Knowledge Base Instructions are for the student to grant parents or guardians access to view and discuss their financial information by creating a 4-digit FERPA PIN, setting up an Authorized User account and/or creating a Delegate account.