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Compare schools, don't rank them.

By allisonm on 09 Jul | 2 comments
That's the message private colleges and universities are sending according to this New York Times article.
 
A common website offering data on everything from the demographic break down of undergraduates to average loan amounts, may be available on a "colorful two-page site with charts and graphs" as early as September. That is, if this proposal is accepted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Council of Independent Colleges that together represent nearly 1,600 private institutions.
 
The goal of the site is to provide parents and students with more and better information than what popular (and apparently somewhat biased) U.S. News and World Report rankings offer.
 
A similar but seemingly more robust site is also being developed for public universities. But we won't know until November, when the boards of the two mastermind organizations vote on the initiative, whether it's a go.
 
And if that wasn't enough to peak your tech-savvy interest, a third initiative by the Association of American Universities is also working on presenting student performance and cost data for the 62 research universities it represents.
 
U.S. News and World Report...beware.

 

Topics: Washington | Universities | Colleges |

Comments

Posted: Wed, 03/05/2008 - 12:29pm — allisonm

thanks!

Thanks for the insight! Glad you emailed folks at U-Can about these issues. I agree, they must make the site user-friendly. I hope it get fixed soon too!!
Posted: Wed, 03/05/2008 - 8:01am — Anonymous (not verified)

Hello -- I think U-Can is

Hello -- I think U-Can is a VERY good idea but they need to quickly correct a few areas of USER FRUSTRATION, otherwise the site will be less successful than it could be. Two areas that need to be addressed right away are: Inaccuracy of the search box -- I typed in "Rollins" and "St Leo" in "Florida" and the search results indicated no matches even though BOTH of those schools are members of the site Time expired -- All Internet users are "trained" to rely on the "back button" when navigating through a web site -- this is a normal online expectation -- But on the U-Can site, when the back button is used, we get a "time expired" message and have to start all over again, very frustrating! I sent them an email and am hoping these issues get resolved quickly -- thanks!!