The Etownian >> News
U-CAN network will inform prospectives
Thursday October 04 2007
Elizabethtown College recently joined a national database created to help better inform high school students and their parents about colleges and universities nationwide. This database is called the University and College Accountability Network, or U-CAN. Sixty schools of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) have joined the 600 other colleges nationwide that have registered to join U-CAN.
According to Elizabethtown College President Theodore Long, there has been a lot of discussion across the nation about how colleges and universities need to be more transparent in disclosing information to prospective students and their parents so that schools can be compared with more ease and effectiveness. This is where U-CAN comes into the picture.
U-CAN was created by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. It provides prospective college students and their parents with specific information regarding colleges across the nation, and it does so in one common format which is designed to help ease the college search process.
“For years, we in higher education have been concerned that college rankings like those produced by the U.S. News & World Report are mostly based on a limited set of input data instead of learning outcomes,” Chair of the AICUP Board Brian Mitchell said.
“Now we have done something about it, creating a reliable and accessible source of broad information about higher education institutions that will allow users to make choices based on their needs and educational goals.”
U-CAN decided precisely what information to include in their database based on the comments and recommendations of prospective college students and parents of various backgrounds from across the nation.
The database is comprised of information regarding admissions, enrollment, student demographics, academics, graduation rates, popular fields of study, transfer credit policy, accreditation, faculty, class size, tuition and fees, financial aid, campus housing, student life and campus safety.
The database also provides information from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Survey and Common Data Set which focuses on information regarding average loans at graduation and net tuition.
Overall, U-CAN is expected to prove to be an extremely useful tool not only for prospective college students and their parents, but also for the colleges and universities themselves. Seeing as the database is free to both students and colleges, it is an equally easy way both for colleges to get the desired information to the public and for the students and parents to find the information.
The information regarding Etown is expected to be present on the U-CAN Web-site, www.ucannetwork.org within the coming weeks.
Once the information becomes available to the public, President Long hopes that the database will aid in broadening knowledge across the nation about Elizabethtown College and help people realize Etown’s full potential as a high quality institution.
The Etownian >> News