FERPA stands for Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (sometimes called the Buckley Amendment). Passed by Congress in 1974, the act grants four specific rights to the adult student:

• the right to see the information (records) that the institution is keeping on the student
• the right to seek amendment to those records and, in certain cases, to append a statement to the records
• the right to consent to disclosure of records
• the right to file a complaint with the FERPA office in Washington