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Colleges Selling Alumni info to Credit Card Companies?

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Colleges Selling Alumni info to Credit Card Companies?

Saw this on a Cracked.com article about college:

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Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students

EAST LANSING, Mich. — When Ryan T. Muneio was tailgating with his parents at a Michigan State football game this fall, he noticed a big tent emblazoned with a Bank of America logo. Inside, bank representatives were offering free T-shirts and other merchandise to those who applied for credit cards and other banking products.



Bank of America’s relationship with the university extends well beyond marketing at sports events. The bank has an $8.4 million, seven-year contract with Michigan State giving it access to students’ names and addresses and use of the university’s logo. The more students who take the banks’ credit cards, the more money the university gets. Under certain circumstances, Michigan State even stands to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.



University officials say that their agreements with card issuers comply with the law and bring in valuable revenue.

“It provides money for scholarships and other programs,” said Terry R. Livermore, manager of licensing programs at Michigan State. He said that the program was aimed primarily at alumni and the university would not include sharing student information in future credit card contracts. “The students are such a minuscule portion of this program.”



The alumni association of the University of Michigan is guaranteed $25.5 million over the term of its 11-year agreement with Bank of America. Under the agreement, the association agreed to provide lists of names and addresses of students, alumni, faculty, staff, donors and holders of season tickets to athletic events.

Much of the money goes toward scholarships, said Jerry Sigler, vice president and chief financial officer of the alumni association. He was unsure what students were told about the program.


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How do you guys feel about this? For instance, would you support FAU doing it to you guys as season ticket holders, if they don't already?
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Re: Colleges Selling Alumni info to Credit Card Companies?

No way do I want ANYONE EVER selling "MY" info!
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Re: Colleges Selling Alumni info to Credit Card Companies?

Two things about this…

Credit card affinity programs are commonplace at universities, including FAU. If you are a BofA customer you have an FAU debit and credit card option and membership in these programs does provide money to the school, so I think if younalready have an account there, and already have one of those accounts, you might as well take out the fau logo'd cards, it helps the school along the way.

As for selling access to banks, I believe fau does not participate in this practice. I remember hearing last summer that we were very close to a naming sponsor of the stadium, they were a bank, and part of the deal was that they wanted access to our students/alumni and that didn't jive with fau and or bank Atlantic so the deal fell through.
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Re: Colleges Selling Alumni info to Credit Card Companies?

I oppose anyone selling personal information about me. But I suspect the Alumni Association does it anyway. Entities that do this open themselves to serious legal liability. In any case, any entity planning to sell personal information on anyone should be required to clearly so state before the person decides whether to have a relationship with said entity. Even now, the Alumni Association should clearly state whether it sells our information and to whom so we can decide whether to sever our relationships with it and put it on notice to retain all records because those records might be pertinent to subsequent legal action. 
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