Thanks to Eric and Tom, I think I have got it. Here is the function for adding a new student, who can select anything in public and can do anything at all in their own schema. revoke all on schema public from public; -- done only once create or replace function new_student (text) returns void as $$ declare t_name text; begin -- personal schema execute 'create role ' || $1 || ' LOGIN'; execute 'create schema authorization ' || $1 ; -- public schema execute 'revoke all on schema public from ' || $1; execute 'grant usage on schema public to ' || $1; for t_name in select table_name from information_schema.tables where table_schema = 'public' order by table_name loop raise notice 'granting select to %s on %s', $1, t_name; execute 'grant select on ' || t_name || ' to ' || $1; end loop; end; $$ language plpgsql ; select new_student ('fobar'); --etc -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general