Financial Aid Administrators are entrusted with highly sensitive information about each student and parent contributors on the FAFSA. The University of Massachusetts and the Financial Aid Office is obligated to safeguard this information in compliance with four applicable laws that govern access, use and disclosure of data received from the FAFSA or derived FAFSA data. The applicable laws include:

• The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974
• The Higher Education Act (HEA)  483 
• The Privacy Act of 1974
• Internal Revenue Code (IRC) 6103 (i)(13) 

The intent of FERPA is to protect the privacy of students, in part by prohibiting post-secondary institutions from disclosing personally identifiable information (PII) contained in the educational records to any third party – including student’s parents – without permission.

HEA 483 specifically restricts the use of FAFSA data and states that data collected from the FAFSA shall be used only for the application, award and administration of aid awarded under federal student aid programs, state or institutional aid. FAFSA data can be used by the institution to perform research if the data is not disclosed in disaggregated form.

The Privacy Act governs the collection, maintenance and use of records maintained by federal agencies and generally prohibits agencies from disclosing data contained in those records. The Privacy Act can impose restrictions on institutions as well if a federal agency lawfully provides records or access to records to an institution.

The IRC 6103 prohibits any redisclosure by the institutions of Federal Tax Information (FTI) included on FAFSA records obtained by the school. This data is used solely in the administration of federal aid programs.