FERPA Request Letter Generator

If you're 18 or older, or in college or grad school, and want to get a copy of the records the school has on you, this form will help you generate a request for those documents. (If you're under 18 and in high school or earlier, your parent or guardian needs to make the request; they can use this page to generate the legal parts and then change the wording to fit their situation.)

Part 1: Instructions

Fill in all the information and answer the questions on this page. Once you are done, click on the button that says "Create Letter." This will NOT send the letter to the agency for you; instead, it sends back a letter as a Web page that you can save as a document for editing in your word processor, or send directly to your printer.

You should then mail the letter (preferably via certified mail, return-receipt-requested) to your school or hand deliver it.

Note: We do not collect any of the information you submit; none of your data will be recorded by the SPLC.

Feel free to use this as often as you like until you get a letter you are happy with. One hint: if you use your browser's features to move back to this page later, rather than follow our links back, your page will still contain the data you have added. If you are a student journalist or adviser and have questions, contact the Student Press Law Centerls legal hotline.

Part 2: Your contact information

Enter the name and address of the agency/office where you will send this request:

Part 3: Fee Limit

Enter a dollar limit for the amount of copying fees you are willing to pay. The statute prohibits the imposition of fees as a tactic to avoid the right to inspect your records, and the letter asks for the records to be prepared for inspection regardless of the fee, so it's not crucial that this number be very high.

Part 4: Getting the Letter

Thank you for using the Student Press Law Center's sample FERPA request letter service. Once you receive the finished letter (which should be almost immediately after clicking on the button below), you can save it to a file on your computer, send it directly to your printer or cut and paste the text into a word processor document where you can edit it freely and print it out on your news organization's letterhead. If you are printing directly, be sure to remove some of the header options, usually found under a Page Setup menu option on your browser.

If you want to modify your letter, return to this page. You can then modify your answers and resubmit the form. Note that if you choose the "Clear" button below, all the information you typed will be wiped away.