New Initiative to Give Families Better College Information

Spurred on by the popularity of the U.S. News & World Report annual college rankings, the the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) next month will launch a directory of concise, web-based, and user- friendly profiles of hundreds of private colleges and universities.

Each college and university profile will contain information on admissions, enrollment, geographic and racial/ethnic diversity, graduation rates, most popular degrees, price of attendance, financial aid, net tuition, loan debt, and much more --all in a common format, the association says.

The directory will be known as U-CAN (the University and College Accountability Network).

U-CAN is different from other college information tools inseveral ways, the association says. The type of information collected and the design of the college and university profiles were shaped by the focus groups with students and parents, it says. U-CAN collects the most useful information from participating institutions, and reports it in reader-friendly format. Reputation surveys and institutional rankings are not part of consumer-informed U-CAN website, it adds.

Participating schools include Ivy League universities, liberal arts colleges, historically black institutions, women's colleges, religious and faith-related schools, and many other types of nonprofit, private institutions. The roster of institutions is quickly approaching 400, the association reports.

U-CAN will be free -- both to consumers and to the colleges and universities that choose to participate. U-CAN is not-for-profit and accepts no advertising or sponsorships, the association adds.

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