Texas State hits nearly 7K FERPA connections to facilitate student persistence
Ask the parent of a college student what they want, and the answer will probably be more information. Today’s families crave insight into how their student is succeeding on campus.
But even schools with progressive family engagement strategies are hitting a wall in delivering on this need: FERPA.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects the information of students; put another way, it prevents colleges and universities from sharing it with eager and interested parents without the approval of the student. And with four of the five top information requests from parents being FERPA-protected, it’s a logjam of paperwork and processes that can frustrate parents and university administrators.
So when Texas State University joined the CampusESP family back in 2019, it was with a strong focus to lower this hurdle and streamline their FERPA process.
“Time was of the essence in processing our hard copy ‘Grant Access to Student Information’ forms. Parents attending New Student Orientation would turn in their form to an office across campus and later visit Financial Aid expecting the form to be in the system that same day!” says Martha Fraire-Cuellar, University Registrar. “Texas State needed a solution – and CampusESP gave us that.“
Fraire-Cuellar personally led the charge to implement CampusESP, working in conjunction with the financial aid, student business services, and IT departments at Texas State. And it’s been a wildly successful one, with the team ultimately launching a robust and valuable destination that attracted 41,000+ parents and resulted in 3,000+ digital FERPA connections just within its first year!
Parents want student data … and 95% of students are good with that
Once parents request access to information using the FERPA management tool, students are notified via email and asked to approve any or all of the requests.
The impetus for an electronic FERPA management system was driven by a number of factors. With a front-row seat in the registrar’s office, Fraire-Cuellar saw personally how long the traditional paper process took, and the time drain it was on her team. She also saw that while the high volume of parent requests often felt frustrating, they were often driven by good intentions.
“Helicopter parents, lawnmower parents, stealth parents … the names have changed but there has been a growing increase of parent involvement in college students’ day-to-day,” says Fraire-Cuellar. “It can come off as these parents being hyper-involved or even overbearing … but maybe they are just over worried. Maybe they are protecting their investment in their student’s future. Maybe they just want to help.”
Fraire-Cuellar is spot on. Her goal as a college administrator is to ensure these students persist and graduate. And the parents she was dealing with really just wanted the same. In fact, we’ve found that student persistence can increase by up to 15% when students share key aspects of their academic and financial record with parents.
The trick was finding a way to work together.
The team at Texas State saw an online FERPA management system as an olive branch to these concerned families — a way to provide them with information in a way that didn’t drain the resources of her department. Knowing that 95% of students approve their parents' FERPA requests through CampusESP, the team felt confident this would be the information bridge they needed.
Cross-campus collaboration leads to a custom experience
Parents receive alerts when new data is available, or can access anytime from within the CampusESP parent portal. Texas State’s set-up includes details about many of the tiles, including outstanding steps in the enrollment process.
With the implementation of CampusESP’s FERPA solution in front of them, Fraire-Cuellar and her team saw an opportunity to create a Texas State-specific experience that truly met the needs of their unique community.
That meant they wanted more than just GPA or credit hours to be available for sharing. Working with the Financial Aid, Student Business Services, Veteran Benefits, Admissions, and Parent & Family Relations departments over a few months of strategy sessions, and with the Customer Success team here at CampusESP on custom data sharing, Fraire-Cuellar launched the Bobcat Family Portal in February 2020.
Now when families of accepted families are added to the portal and gain FERPA approval from their student, Texas State can provide:
an outline of the financial aid process and the student’s outstanding tasks
a breakdown of the enrollment process and important to-dos, like deposit deadlines and registration links for student and family orientation
the student’s class schedule, credit load, and GPA
student holds and account balances
student VA benefits
122% year over year growth in FERPA connections
Not surprisingly, easier access to pertinent information about their student’s college experience was something Texas State parents really got into. Within a year of its launch, the Bobcat Family Portal had more than 41,000 parents and 3,092 FERPA connections. As Texas State finishes out its second full year with CampusESP, 63,483 parents are receiving updates (a 55% increase! )and FERPA connections are up to 6,880 — an impressive jump of 122.5%!
What’s more, families are continually engaged with the communications, alerts, and announcements Texas State is sending via the portal; the average email open rate is 57%.
Happier and more informed families also led to some wins just for the administrative team at Texas State, like a significant decrease in phone calls from confused or concerned parents.
CampusESP + Texas State: Making each other better
As Texas State’s use of the portal has grown, so has the trusted relationship CampusESP has with Fraire-Cuellar and the school. With our goal always being the success of our customers in achieving their goals, we’ve worked with Texas State since launch to add even more customization and functionality to their portal experience.
With their feedback and help, we’ve added features and improvements to the admin experience, as well as enhanced the variety of information “student tiles” the FERPA area can display.
“I can’t help but think … if we had not launched CampusESP when we did, right before COVID hit, with increasing staff turnover and multiple entry points for the form — the processing delays would have been insurmountable,” says Fraire-Cuellar. “CampusESP and the FERPA management tool helped our office eliminate the form and the workload attached to it.”