Spin-off - Social Security Numbers on Paperwork

[bcla]

As I said, over 20 states have banned schools from using Social Security numbers for anything other than financial reasons.

You are incorrect in your insistence that all colleges do this. Maybe Minnesota does this, but not every state is allowed to collect social security numbers for record keeping.

I'm not sure you're right. They can certainly collect the SSN, but many states have laws that they can't be in any kind of listing available to the public. Here's what the State University of New York says:

https://www.suny.edu/sunypp/documents.cfm?doc_id=535

NYS Education Law §2-b limits the use of student social security numbers by all levels of both public and private educational institutions. The State University of New York concludes that the general intent of the legislation is to bar an educational institution from making a student's social security number publicly available, and thus potentially available for misuse, when it is not necessary to the educational or other legitimate functions of the institution to do so. The University assumes the prohibition applies to such listings, rosters, lists and directories whether the same are available in printed or electronic media. It is not the intent of the legislation to interfere with essential functions of colleges and universities and the uses of a student's social security number as required or permitted by law.

And other policies/studies:

http://www.spcollege.edu/ssn/
http://www.uh.edu/legal-affairs/con...and use of social security numbers 8-9-11.pdf
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/BC/htm/BC.501.htm

http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/privacy/ssn_colluniv.pdf

All of the respondents reported using the SSN for administrative purposes. These uses include employee benefits, tax reporting, loan program, development and donations,admissions, financial aid, debt collection and the National Student Clearinghouse. In most of these cases the collection and use of the number is legally mandated, as described in Section III. The California law prohibiting the public display of SSNs implicitly recognizes the need for this type of use by providing that it does not prevent the collection or use of the numbers for “administrative purposes.”