In these tough economic times, we are all looking for ways to earn a little extra money. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell Barack Obama’s old senate seat, Brett Farve is likely already contemplating another return, and word on the street is my high school-aged brother is looking to muscle his way back into the neighborhood lemonade stand business as soon as the weather improves a bit more. The fundamental truth behind all of this is that we all would like a little extra spending money and that natural impulse is magnified by the current forecasts of financial ruin.
In a way, the above actions are all excusable. Blago was caught before he could actually sell the seat (I think Senator Sosa may have been a distinct possibility — I hear he finally remembered that he can speak English), and the only ones that really get hurt by my brother forcing his way back into the market are those two girls down the street who have had a monopoly on the refreshment market for years. Where problems really arise in the case of actions like this are when those actions go on to affect a much larger group of people. Say 45,158 or so.
Recently, a company called College Financial Advisory has been sending letter to parents of University of Wisconsin students offering information for financial aid in exchange for a small payment of $49. The only catch is that the information is actually free.
By itself, this seems like just another scam designed to prey on parents and students looking for tuition assistance. Unfortunately, this incident does not stand by itself.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports university policy allows for the sale of student contact information to third party companies. Like my brother and Blagojevich apparently, the university is just looking for a bit of spending money, and with the state and university budgets in shambles, who can blame them?
Well, we can.
With a processing fee of around $90 per name, the university has the potential to make over $4 million by selling your name, address (home and campus), e-mail, phone number, class year, major and birthday, to any corporation willing to fork over the cash. Oftentimes, these companies are information brokers that turn around and resell that information to a smorgasbord of other businesses. Didn’t you ever wonder how all those insurance, credit card, and loan companies got a hold of you?
There is hardly consensus regarding the issue. While UW-Milwaukee observes similar guidelines pertaining to the sale of student information, while Marquette regards its student information as public, but does package it into databases for sale to outside companies. Regardless of school policy, however, the university must exercise responsibility when dealing with personal information.
As college students, we value our independence. It would discredit our claims on adulthood and responsibility if we were to argue that the university should be actively protecting us from such con jobs. However, the university should not be actively placing us at risk for them either.
Certain inconveniences must be taken for granted in life, and junk mail is doubtlessly one of them. There is little harm (in fact, it is beneficial) in the university earning extra income by selling information to outside agencies, however, the university must be judicious when deciding which companies to sell such information to.
For example, companies with reputations for engaging in questionable business practices should not be given access to the list, no matter how much they want to pay. Furthermore, the university should look into limiting the resale of student information by the parties that buy it. It may require some concessions to get such information brokers to agree not to sell information to a specific list of companies, but any drop in income would be worth it to ensure that our names, addresses, etc. are not used for more insidious schemes.
In the university’s defense, you can prohibit them from selling your information by changing your setting on My Student Center, but then again, you have to change your information on My Student Center.
All user interface complaints aside though, it seems that too few students are aware of what the university does with their information, much less their ability to change
It’s all right for the university to try and make money off us. Everybody does it. The only difference is that the lemonade my brother sells doesn’t have the potential to cost anyone $50.
Joey Labuz ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in biomedical engineering.
CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, the Feb 12. article “UW shares blame for mailing scam” implied that the UW charged $90 per student. The correct figure is $90 per list. Also, due to an editing error, the Feb. 12 headline “UW makes student information public for $90” may have been misleading. Both articles should have made it clear that UW is obligated by federal law to make this information available. We regret the errors.
