How Student Rights Change From High School to College

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A parent can pay college tuition without automatically gaining access to the student’s academic records. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) transfers record rights from parents to students at age 18 or when they attend college at any age.

A high school individualized education program, or IEP, does not apply at college, and a student who wants disability adjustments should request them from the college as early as possible. More responsibility falls on the college student: controlling access to records and asking for disability adjustments.

Public or private makes a difference

Public universities are government actors subject to constitutional requirements, while private universities generally are not. Private colleges can still have duties under state law and, when federally funded, under Title IX, the federal law against sex discrimination in education.

FERPA applies to education institutions receiving funds from programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education; private elementary and secondary schools generally do not receive those funds and are not covered. Two laws against disability discrimination also depend on funding or type of school: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act covers educational programs receiving federal funding, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, covers public and nonreligious private schools. The two laws protect students in many, if not most, higher education programs. So the first questions about any school are who runs it and whether it receives federal money.

Parents no longer control college records by default

At college, the rights over education records belong to the student, not the parents, at any age. The student can arrange continued parental help by asking the registrar how to authorize access to the records the family needs. Disclosure normally requires signed, dated consent identifying the records, the purpose and the recipients.

FERPA permits a school to disclose records without student consent to parents of a student who is a dependent for federal tax purposes. That is a permission the school may use, rather than a promise that every parent will receive records. Paying tuition does not, by itself, give a parent access to protected academic records.

Another exception permits disclosure to people who need the information to protect the student or others when there is an articulable and significant threat to health or safety. For alcohol or controlled-substance violations, a college may notify a parent after determining that a disciplinary violation occurred if the student is under 21 when disclosure occurs; state-law limits on disclosure still apply.

Directory information is information whose disclosure generally would not be harmful or invade privacy, and may include a student's name, contact information, photograph or enrollment status. Before releasing directory information, a school must give notice of the types of information it has designated, of the right to refuse and of how long a student has to opt out in writing. Read that notice early if public listings are a concern.

Students can inspect records and challenge errors

A covered school must provide access to requested education records within a reasonable time, no more than 45 days after receiving the request. A student can ask the school to amend records that are inaccurate, misleading or in violation of the student’s privacy rights, and a refusal must include notice of the right to a hearing. Start with the particular record and the particular error, rather than a general request for the college to reconsider every decision.

FERPA complaints go to the Education Department’s Student Privacy Policy Office, generally within 180 days of the alleged violation or of the date the student knew or reasonably should have known of it. The department encourages students to try resolving a FERPA problem with the institution first, but does not require that attempt before filing. A complaint must be in writing with specific factual allegations supporting a possible violation. Use the linked privacy office complaint form and submission instructions, and keep copies of the records request and the school's response.

High-school disability plans do not carry over automatically

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, and its individualized education program (IEP) provisions do not apply to postsecondary schools. Under Section 504, a school district must identify a student’s educational needs and provide a free appropriate public education, known as FAPE. A college is not required to provide FAPE; it must provide appropriate academic adjustments so that it does not discriminate on the basis of disability. In high school the district is responsible for identifying the need; in college the student makes the request. A college request should explain the barrier to access, rather than simply ask the college to reproduce the high-school plan.

An IEP or Section 504 plan can help identify services that worked, but generally is not sufficient documentation by itself for college adjustments. Additional documentation or a new evaluation may be necessary to establish current needs. Keep the old plan and evaluation, then ask the disability services office what it needs before paying for new testing.

Students may request academic adjustments at any time, but should request them as early as possible and follow the college's procedures so it has time to review and provide them. Adjustments can include extended test time, note takers, interpreters, accessible computer technology or changes to course requirements suited to individual needs.

The costs and limits are different

Neither the high school nor the college must conduct or pay for a new evaluation documenting the need for college academic adjustments; an eligible student may qualify for a no-cost evaluation through a state vocational rehabilitation agency. A college may not charge for academic adjustments or charge students with disabilities more for participating in its programs than other students.

Colleges need not lower essential requirements, change the substantive content of a test or make changes that fundamentally alter a program or impose undue financial or administrative burdens. They also need not provide personal attendants, individually prescribed devices, readers for personal use or study, or personal services such as tutoring. An adjustment can change how a student gains access without eliminating what the course requires the student to learn. Ask which essential requirement a proposed change would affect, and whether another adjustment would address the barrier.

Practically every college must have a person who coordinates its Section 504 or ADA compliance. A college must also have grievance procedures that let students raise concerns fully and fairly and provide for prompt, equitable resolution. If an adjustment is denied or does not address the problem, take the specific concern to that coordinator and consult the published grievance procedure.

Speech rights change with the setting

The rules here are constitutional, so a private college is generally not bound by them. The first three are about public schools; the fourth is about public colleges.

In a public school, officials who want to prohibit a student’s personal expression need more than discomfort with an unpopular viewpoint. They must show a basis involving material and substantial interference with school discipline or other students’ rights.

Expression that a school sponsors as part of its curriculum has a different rule: editorial control of a public high school newspaper may be permitted when reasonably related to legitimate educational concerns. The distinction is between a student expressing a view and the school deciding what to promote through its own instructional activity.

The Supreme Court has said courts should be more skeptical when a school regulates off-campus speech, while recognizing that a school may have an interest in conduct such as serious targeted bullying, threats and school-related online activities. A social-media post is therefore not automatically beyond school authority, but neither does being enrolled put every off-campus statement under school control.

At a public college, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the first of those rules, saying First Amendment protections do not apply with less force on college campuses than in the wider community. A public college cannot deny a student group recognition merely because it disagrees with the group’s philosophy. Government can set reasonable limits on the time, place and manner of protected speech when the limits do not depend on what is said, are narrowly tailored to a significant government interest and leave ample other ways to communicate. Ask for the applicable rule and the reason it is being applied before assuming an event restriction is either lawful or unconstitutional.

In Hazelwood, the Supreme Court left open whether the same deference to school-sponsored expression applies at colleges and universities.

Mahanoy concerned a high school student; in a separate concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito said he did not understand its decision to apply to public college or university students.

Discipline and academic dismissal use different rules

Public high school students have a property interest in their education, the Supreme Court has ruled, so for suspensions of 10 days or fewer they must receive oral or written notice of the charges and, if they deny them, an explanation of the evidence and a chance to present their side. A student posing a continuing danger to people or property, or an ongoing threat of academic disruption, may be removed immediately, with notice and a basic hearing as soon as practicable afterward.

For public college students, the Supreme Court has assumed without deciding that continued enrollment is a constitutionally protected property right.

Some federal appeals courts recognize a general property interest in public higher education; others ask whether state law creates one. Discipline can also affect liberty interests: one appeals court allowed a claim from a student found responsible for sexual misconduct and permanently expelled from a state university system.

The Supreme Court has said that longer suspensions or expulsions may require more formal procedures. When public university discipline takes away a protected liberty or property interest, federal courts generally require adequate notice of the charges and evidence and an opportunity for the student to present an account to an unbiased decision-maker. What is required depends on the penalty and the interest at stake; not every college case comes with courtroom procedures. Use the notice of charges and the opportunity to respond to explain your side of the case.

The Constitution requires less procedure for an academic dismissal than for a disciplinary suspension or expulsion, and universities have more flexibility in administering academic standards. First identify whether the dispute is about misconduct or the student's academic performance; the label affects the procedural question.

At a private college, constitutional due-process requirements generally do not apply, but state law may impose obligations and federally funded colleges must comply with Title IX.

Title IX still protects students, but its procedures differ

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. The statute has exceptions, including for religiously controlled institutions where applying it would conflict with religious tenets. Its ban on discrimination in admissions applies only to vocational, professional and graduate schools and to public undergraduate institutions. That limit concerns admissions; Title IX still covers a federally funded school’s other programs.

The Education Department amended its Title IX regulations in 2024, but that rule has been vacated and is not enforceable. The department says the 2020 rule, not the 2024 rule, governs, and its final rule, Recodification of Title IX Rules, effective September 29, 2026, repealed the 2024 rule and restored the earlier regulatory text. Check the school’s current Title IX procedure, especially if a handbook or saved guide describes different hearing rules.

The federal district court in the Eastern District of Kentucky vacated the 2024 rule in full on January 9, 2025; a Texas federal district court also vacated it in February 2025. The now-vacated 2024 rule made live hearings optional in college sex-based harassment grievance procedures. The restored framework requires a live hearing for covered formal sexual-harassment complaints at colleges, with relevant cross-examination conducted by each party’s advisor.

Under the restored regulations, the complainant is the person alleged to be the victim of conduct that could constitute sexual harassment. The respondent is the person reported to have committed that conduct. Sexual harassment includes a school employee conditioning an aid, benefit or service on participation in unwelcome sexual conduct. It also includes unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person finds so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it effectively denies equal access to the school’s education program or activity. The definition separately includes sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking as defined in the referenced federal statutes.

A report for support is different from a formal complaint

Under these regulations, an elementary or secondary school is treated as knowing of alleged sexual harassment once any employee has notice of it. At a college, notice must reach the Title IX coordinator or an official with authority to institute corrective measures. A college employee's ability or obligation to report does not, by itself, make that employee an official with corrective authority. So do not assume that telling any college employee puts the college on notice; the Title IX coordinator is the person to tell.

Once a covered school has actual knowledge of sexual harassment in its education program or activity against a person in the United States, it must respond promptly without deliberate indifference. A response is deliberately indifferent only if it is clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances.

Supportive measures are individualized, nonpunitive services, such as counseling or changes to class schedules, offered as appropriate and reasonably available, without charge. They are designed to preserve access to education without unreasonably burdening the other party. The Title IX coordinator must promptly discuss supportive measures with the complainant, consider the complainant's wishes, explain their availability with or without a formal complaint and explain how to file one. Seeking support and requesting an investigation are distinct decisions under this process.

A formal complaint is a document filed by the complainant or signed by the Title IX coordinator alleging sexual harassment and requesting an investigation. A complainant must be participating or attempting to participate in the school's program when filing, and can submit the complaint to the coordinator in person, by mail or by email, as well as by a school-designated method. The regulations preserve any legal right a parent or guardian has to act for a party, including by filing a formal complaint; FERPA does not relieve a school of its Title IX duties. Ask the coordinator to explain which request is being made and what procedure follows it.

The federal sexual-harassment complaint must be dismissed if the alleged conduct, even if proved, would not meet the regulatory definition, occurred outside the school's education program or activity, or did not occur against a person in the United States. That dismissal does not prevent action under another part of the school's conduct code. Nor is such a dismissal a finding that nothing happened.

Title IX prohibits intimidation, threats, coercion or discrimination because a person reports, complains or participates, or refuses to participate, in its proceedings.

College hearings and high-school written questions

For covered formal sexual-harassment complaints, a college's grievance process must include a live hearing, with relevant cross-examination conducted by each party's advisor rather than by the party personally. If a party has no advisor at the hearing, the college must provide one without charge to conduct cross-examination; that advisor need not be a lawyer. That requirement is for the hearing; do not assume it guarantees a lawyer for the whole case.

Elementary and secondary schools need not hold a hearing, but must give the parties an opportunity to submit written relevant questions, receive answers and ask limited follow-up questions before a responsibility decision.

For these formal complaints, a school may choose the preponderance or clear-and-convincing evidence standard, but must apply its chosen standard consistently across student and employee complaints. Preponderance means more likely than not; clear and convincing is a more difficult standard to satisfy. Do not assume every campus process uses the same burden of proof; read the standard in the applicable procedure.

Where an outside complaint fits

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, has a Complaint Assessment System that helps determine whether it can investigate discrimination involving a covered school or college, and suggests other resources when an OCR complaint is not the appropriate route. A Title IX or Section 504 complaint to the department generally must be in writing and filed within 180 days of the alleged discrimination, unless the responsible department official extends the filing time.

Use the privacy office for a FERPA problem, the disability coordinator for an access problem and the Title IX coordinator for the school’s sex-discrimination process. An Office for Civil Rights complaint asks the department itself to investigate the school.