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FERPA limitations



Hello All:
 
Being an academic collection that finds student-related records cropping up in the
most unusual places, we have been wrestling with the requirements of the U.S. Family
Education Rights & Privacy act (which is sometimes referred to as the "Buckley Amendment").  We have done some redacting (Latin for black magic marker) of photocopied documents, but wondered how other educational archives meet the challenges of FERPA.
 
My specific question involves time limitations.  As I read the regulations, the privacy rights are secured for an unspecified time to the documented student (and, before adulthood, to their legal guardian).   Does this mean those privacy protections disappear upon the death of the student (which seems to be the only practical time frame in this age of life-long learning)? 
 
If the FERPA rights end with the life of the student, then could we not breathe easily with records that were, say, 80 years old (with marginal fear of centenarian scholars)?
 
Does anyone have such a policy?
 
Steven
 
Steven Allan Brown
Head, University Archives & Records Management
Hargrett Library
Main Library
University of Georgia
Athens, GA  30602
sabrown@arches.uga.edu
 
"They are incapable of articulating words, however much care and attention may be bestowed upon their education; and their screams are so disagreeable as to render them at best very indifferent companions."
 
-Audubon on the Carolina Parakeet in his Ornithological Biography-