Had basically the same experience at a large public college. I had classes which would print out a list of SSN and test scores for everyone in the room to look

Had basically the same experience at a large public college. I had classes which would print out a list of SSN and test scores for everyone in the room to look at. Before the Internet SSN was "presumed secret" but it became a tragedy of the commons. By 2000 it was the equivalent of your public key and should have been treated as such by institutions, never used as password like that bookstore did. Student ID card would have been the right way to verify identity at a college; I'd forgotten the SID defaulted to SSN, which was also really lazy decision!