An examination of 17 affinity agreements between credit-card companies and colleges by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reveals how colleges are required to provide banks with students’ names, addresses, and telephone numbers, and in some cases make additional money when students carry a balance on their credit cards. The details of such deals, long popular as revenue sources for alumni groups, were largely unknown until last year’s credit-card-reform legislation required their disclosure. The Huffington Post’s investigative arm is recruiting student journalists to help track down more affinity agreements with the country’s largest universities.
RSS
Follow The Ticker through your favorite RSS reader.
2 Responses to Credit-Card Contracts Show How Colleges Can Profit From Student Debt
dmaratto - June 8, 2010 at 11:00 pm
” … reveals how colleges are required to provide banks with students’ names, addresses, and telephone numbers, and in some cases make additional money when students carry a balance on their credit cards”Doesn’t this violate FERPA? Even though it’s maybe ‘directory information’ I can’t see how it is allowed.
whm3113 - June 9, 2010 at 4:53 pm
dmarattoI’m confused. You ask if this doesn’t violate FERPA, but then acknowledge there is an exception for “directory information” in FERPA. No, this doesn’t violate FERPA. Additionally it is likely the card holder provides permission to the lender to obtain this information from the school as part of their cardholder agreement, which almost nobody reads completely.