Office Of The Registrar, New Brunswick

Confidentiality of Your Student Directory Information

What is FERPA?

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA") is a federal law that gives students in higher education various rights with respect to their education records. One of your rights under FERPA relates to the confidentiality of information contained in your education records. As a general rule, Rutgers may not disclose "personally identifiable information" from your education records to anyone outside of the University without your prior written consent. There are exceptions to this general rule; one of them relates to "directory information." Rutgers may disclose (release directory information) about you without your prior consent provided Rutgers does the following:

  • informs you what we define as directory information, and
  • provides you the opportunity to request that directory information not be disclosed.

Directory Information at Rutgers Includes:

name major field of study
campus address class year
campus post office address dates of attendance
campus telephone number current credit load
Rutgers e-mail address credit hours earned
RUCS user name degree(s) received
permanent (home) address date(s) of degree(s)
permanent (home) telephone number weight and height of intercollegiate athletes
school of attendance most recent previous school attended
date of birth
honors and awards

Disclosure of Directory Information at Rutgers

The most common ways in which Rutgers discloses your directory information are

  • Rutgers Online Directory - The Rutgers Online Directory is a database of Rutgers students, faculty and staff that is available through the Rutgers homepage (http://search.rutgers.edu/index-alt.html?legacy) and accessible worldwide via the Internet.
  • Verifications Division of the University Registrar - The Verifications Division of the University Registrar confirms to prospective employers, credit agencies, educational institutions and others that you are enrolled at Rutgers. This usually occurs when you have filed a job, school or credit application and the recipient needs to verify information on the application.

Preventing Disclosure of Your Directory Information

Submitting this form will make your directory information confidential until you make a written request to the Office of the Registrar to lift this restriction. Please be advised that requesting full confidentiality of your Directory Information will make this information unavailable to prospective employers, insurance companies, and others to whom you may want this information known or verified. Thus it is recommended that students carefully consider whether personal privacy concerns outweigh the potential inconvenience of having directory information withheld.

Updated: October 17, 2024

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