Policy on Access to Student Records (FERPA)
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 regulates who may access a students educational information including his or her financial information as is relevant to the University.
University policy states that educational records can be disclosed to a number of third parties, including parents of a dependent student as defined by Internal Revenue Code. However, no parties outside the institution may have access to these records, including parents. A students account is considered a vital piece of his or her educational records. Thus, third parties may not access a student’s bill, make a payment for the student, or request a refund from the student’s account without prior consent granted by the student. Any refund will be issued to the student except in the following cases: A fully sponsored student, where tuition is billed directly to the sponsor and wire transfers for a student is not currently registered. Another notable exception to this is in the case of Federal Parent PLUS loans – the refund will be issued to the person who applied for the loan. Otherwise, when funds are placed on the student account, they belong solely to the student. Please see the Universities Policy on FERPA
For students who would like to share information from their TreeHouse with someone, such as giving their parents access to their Student Account Center for assistance in addressing their semester bill, please click HERE for instructions on setting up Proxy Access to specific areas of TreeHouse. Please Note: The Nelnet Student Account Center will require students to provide a separate Third Party Authorization. This is in addition to what you set up here in TreeHouse. The Student Account Center Authorization will allow a third party to access billing statements and view itemized account transactions.