Also known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act or the Buckley Amendment, FERPA is a federal law that was enacted in 1974 to protect the privacy of student educational records.All institutions that receive federal funding must comply with FERPA.ccording to the law, a person becomes a student for purposes of FERPA when they are in attendance at an institution. This includes attendance in person or remotely by videoconference, satellite, Internet, or other electronic and telecommunications technologies.