Thanks Pete... My recommendation still stands... Use an IDENTITY column and have the students remember their "number". I don't know what Gaggle.net is, but let the students create their own handles and associate it with that number.

Heh... you may actually be violating privacy by doing what your propose. Some may not want to publish their graduation year because of both hazing and the fact that they might have "stayed back". Also, some folks just don't want people to know that there's more than one person with the same name, etc, etc. There are no privacy issues with numbers instead of naturally derived keys.

I really believe that your plan is bad not just for the DB, but I also believe that you're opening up the school to the potential for lawsuits (no matter how silly they may seem).