In compliance with the U.S. Department of Education guidance and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) the Financial Aid Office honors the privacy and confidentiality of students, parents, and spouses. We protect the integrity of this confidential information on FAFSAs and other financial aid applications and documents required to determine financial aid eligibility.
The federal FAFSA Simplification Act resulted in the use of Federal Tax Information (FTI) data to populate Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) that colleges and state higher education agencies receive from the U.S. Department of Education after students submit FAFSAs. While most FTI data is obtained directly from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), some of it is calculated based on specific IRS data. A few examples of FTI data, of which there are many, include tax filing status, adjusted gross income (AGI), and student and parent allowances.
In contrast to ISIRs, FAFSAs and FAFSA Submission Summaries that students and their contributors have access to do not contain FTI data. Colleges are permitted to use FTI data for the application, awarding, and administration of financial aid, though it has a very high level of privacy and confidentiality. The Financial Aid Team is prohibited by the Internal Revenue Code, the U.S. Privacy Act and the Higher Education Act from disclosing FTI data to students, parents and others.
To protect the privacy and confidentiality of this information and to minimize the risk of identity theft, the Financial Aid Office has a comprehensive protocol to confirm the identity of individuals who come into, call or email the Financial Aid Office and ask questions regarding students' financial aid eligibility, awards, applications, satisfactory academic progress, and other confidential information directly or indirectly related to the financial aid process.
Below we summarize the process for confirming identify for each communication method.
Students must:
Parents or others without their student present must:
Students must state:
Parents or others without their student present must state:
Students must provide:
If the message appears to be from someone other than the student, we will follow the procedure listed below in this section for parents or others.
For messages that originate from any email account other than a student’s Penn College account, Financial Aid Office staff will respond to the message to state that we will respond to the student’s Penn College email account. If no Penn College email account exists, staff will suggest a phone or in-person conversation.
Parents, spouses, and others must provide us their email address that their student authorized when their financial aid access was approved. This will allow the Financial Aid Team to confirm their 'connection' to their student as long as the following information is also provided:
Financial Aid Office staff will copy students’ Penn College email accounts on our replies to parents/others.
The processes above are guidelines. If Financial Aid Office staff have reason to question the authenticity of any individual asking questions specific to a student’s financial aid information, we reserve the right to ask for additional identifying information or to withhold information to protect the integrity of confidential information detailed above.
Section 312 of the Education Appropriations Act, 2019 (H.R. 6157: Public Law No: 115-245) permits colleges to provide FAFSA data to the following entities with a student’s explicit written consent:
The law states that organizations that receive this information must not sell or otherwise share this information.
Thank you for your appreciation and understanding of the necessity for this Privacy and Confidentiality Policy. Contact the Financial Aid Office with any questions.