Posted on Aug 21, 2007

 

Stephen C. Ainlay, president of Union College

Union College is among more than 400 institutions that will participate in a new Web-based project that will give prospective students and their parents accurate comparative data to help them when making a decision on which college to attend.

The University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) is expected to debut next month. The site was created by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, of which Union is a member.

Participating colleges will create a two-page profile that will include such information as the number of students who applied to the college, the number accepted and the number who enrolled. In addition, the profile will provide gender and ethnic background about students, graduation rates and tuition and student loan statistics. There also will be links to relevant areas on each college’s own Web site.

The U-CAN site comes as federal education officials and members of Congress have encouraged schools to provide better information to the public, and amid concerns that there has been too much reliance on rankings by publications such as U.S. News and World Report.

“We sympathize with the growing objection to rankings because of concerns about methodology and the fact that rankings make seemingly significant distinctions when they really are not significant,” said President Stephen C. Ainlay.

“We understand the importance of supporting families’ need for information as they consider colleges. We are committed to providing them with useful and accurate data, and the U-CAN initiative is one way of accomplishing this.”