(or Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) – U.S. federal government law that outlines privacy rules for student educational records. It specifies what information and under what conditions schools may release information from a student’s educational record. It also outlines the conditions under which parents have the right to access their children’s education records and what rights students have regarding their records. It affords parents the right to have access to their children’s education records, the right to seek to have the records amended, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from the records. When a student turns 18 years old, or enters a postsecondary institution at any age, the rights under FERPA transfer from the parents to the student, with some exceptions in practice, such as students claimed by either parent as a dependent for tax purposes.