In two years, students who want to attend school at North Dakota's public colleges must disclose any criminal records they have, a new Board of Higher Education policy says.

A separate policy requires campus police officers and security guards to undergo a national criminal background check.

Less comprehensive checks are mandated for other jobs, including residence hall managers, child care workers, custodians and employees who have access to medical records, bank account numbers, cash or prescription drugs.

National checks are done by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and involve taking a person's fingerprints and doing a database search.

For most jobs, a report covering one state or several states will suffice, the policy says. The policy authorizes an FBI check for those jobs, but does not require it.

Board members unanimously endorsed the changes on Thursday during a meeting at Bismarck State College. Earlier this year, the Legislature approved a law that allows North Dakota's university system and other state agencies to broaden their requirements for criminal background checks.

Beginning in the fall of 2009, student applications to attend any of the 11 colleges in North Dakota's university system will inquire about whether an applicant has been convicted of a crime, and ask for disclosure of his or her criminal record.

William Goetz, the chancellor of North Dakota's university system, said administrators had disagreed about whether the more stringent FBI national check should be required for his job, and those of campus presidents and vice presidents.

"Several presidents expressed concerns that requiring FBI reports for these positions is unnecessary, and might discourage applicants, because an FBI report is fingerprint-based and some potential candidates might be put off by that requirement," Goetz said in a memo to the Board of Higher Education.

Pat Seaworth, the university system's attorney, said the policy leaves room for the university system to require criminal background checks for students in some study areas.

Campus officials have suggested checks may be appropriate for students in 70 to 80 programs, Seaworth said.

"The next step is to go through that list and determine, from an institution and a system perspective, for which programs do we need authority (for criminal background checks)," Seaworth said. "It's not going to be 70 or 80. It's going to be considerably less than that. But it's going to be more than three or four."

Checks are likely to be required for students who, if they get jobs in their chosen field of study, would have to undergo them anyway, Seaworth said. For example, education graduates who seek a North Dakota teaching license now must get a criminal background check.

"It doesn't make any sense for a student to spend two or four more years in a program getting a degree … if that student is not eligible for licensure upon completion of the degree," Seaworth said. "It would make sense to require a criminal history background check on students in those types of programs at the front end, or some time before graduation."

If it is determined that criminal background checks for students in some fields of study are needed, the requirement will be applied system-wide, Seaworth said.

"It doesn't make sense for UND, for example, to do criminal history checks for students in a particular program, if NDSU has the same program and doesn't do any checks," he said.