The reports make oblique reference to "long term relationships" with sources of information about college students and says the company also gets information from "certain publicly available sources."

Industry experts say the firms have longstanding relationships with many colleges to purchase the information directly from the schools or are given the information for free.

But at schools such as Harvard that refuse to release student contact information, list compilers often pay students to provide them with a copy of the student telephone directory. The directory is then re-compiled into the company's own proprietary database.

While most of the direct marketing that students receive in the mail comes from lists compiled by ASL and ELS, there are other ways for companies to get a hold of a student's name and address.

Credit card companies routinely make use of credit bureaus to pre-screen the U.S. population for individuals with established financial histories in order to present them with "pre-approved" offers of credit.

Sometimes, those individuals happen to be college students.

If an individual responds to a direct mailing, her name, contact information and credit history are released to the credit-card company.