Often I’d find the person in charge on linkedin and email them directly (work email obviously). And dig around until I found the particular person.
UIUC put up a particular fight when I FOIA requested information about their post-graduate surveys. They’re definitely manipulating there. I was in the process of filing a lawsuit when covid hit and gave up because I wasn’t sure if I’d need the funds (plus court shutdown at the time).
FOIA only applies to federal government agencies, universities (other than ones operates by the federal government, like the service academies) aren't subject to it.
State universities might be covered by state sunshine laws that are similar to FOIA, and generally the laws and policies around those only require a request from the public and aren't too particular about form or citing a completely wrong and irrelevant legal basis, so in that case an “FOIA” request might actually have some legal effect. But most private universities would just see it as a particularly pompously written discretionary request.
No, there are definitely FOIA laws that apply to public universities. The post was calling out UIUC and this is their web page about it [1]
But I am really curious about the argument against the requested survey data. The poster linked to his web page which specifically lists UIUC as being exemplar and providing data without even the need for a formal FOIA request.
With the data I’d be able to prove a degree isn’t worth it. Which was what I was planning on making - enter your degree, high school gpa, we could predict the likely outcome.
I’m sure they knew that lol
I requested: country of origin, gender, degree, gpa, salary range, field of work and a couple other fields I forget now.
https://austingwalters.com/foia-requesting-100-universities/
Often I’d find the person in charge on linkedin and email them directly (work email obviously). And dig around until I found the particular person.
UIUC put up a particular fight when I FOIA requested information about their post-graduate surveys. They’re definitely manipulating there. I was in the process of filing a lawsuit when covid hit and gave up because I wasn’t sure if I’d need the funds (plus court shutdown at the time).