FERPA, or the Family Education Rights Privacy Act, is federal legislation that gives ownership of records to the student at the college level. Texas A&M will not provide access to your student’s information without prior and explicit approval from your student. The Registrar’s office has more information about FERPA at Texas A&M.

As a best practice, we recommend having a conversation with your student about expectations around communication of their progress in their coursework and financial information. However, there are also processes for you to obtain access to your students information.

How to Gain Access

In order for parents/guardians to view their student’s grades, the student must request this access for them in Howdy. Students must select each box for parents/guardians to have access to their respective financial aid, dining, parking, academic, and tax form records. The student should ask their parent/guardian to check their email for a message providing them with an activation link for creating their guest login account. Once this is complete, the parent/guardian should be able to access Howdy through the Guest Login option to view the information their student has authorized them to view. For more detailed instructions on how a student can sign up a parent/guardian for access to Howdy, please visit the Technology Services Help Desk Central site, which explains the process step by step.

Please note: Parent/guardian access to Howdy is available while the student is enrolled at Texas A&M University. Once a student is no longer enrolled at Texas A&M University, parent/guardian access will no longer have an active student account to which they can access.