Centre among first wave of colleges to provide additional information to consumers

RELEASED: October 11, 2007

DANVILLE, KY—Centre College, along with more than 600 private colleges and universities across the United States, has joined the University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN), a distinctive new resource to aid prospective students and their parents in exploring and comparing colleges. U-CAN was unveiled in September by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), the largest organization representing nonprofit, private institutions in the United States.

U-CAN is the first national consumer information resource created for students and parents by colleges and universities themselves.

"U-CAN will provide an excellent baseline resource for prospective students and their families," said Carey Thompson, vice president for enrollment and student planning services at Centre. "It will be more up to date than many other existing Web sites, with current facts and figures. While nothing can replace a campus visit and conversations with students and faculty, U-CAN will be a great first step for many."

"The college profiles provide a unique mix of 42 quantitative elements, narrative descriptions and 25 hyperlinks to campus Web sites," Warren said. "Institutions not only report cut-and-dry statistics, but they also have the opportunity to express what makes them special."

The U-CAN consumer information initiative is designed to give prospective students and their families concise, Web-based consumer-friendly information on individual private colleges and universities. Each institutional profile contains comparable data and targeted links to the institution's Web site for information on specific aspects of the institution. The profiles are displayed in a common template that NAICU developed.

Through focus groups conducted in cities across the nation, prospective students and parents from all backgrounds identified the information they most need to make an informed college choice. Their comments shaped the format and content of the U-CAN site. U-CAN is free to users and to the colleges and universities that choose to participate.

U-CAN profiles also include information identified by policy-makers as important for institutional accountability. Congress and the U.S. Department of Education have called for comparable, concise, relevant and easily accessible information to help the public better evaluate and choose colleges.

The in-depth information included in the college and university profiles covers admissions, enrollment, academics, student demographics, graduation rates, most common fields of study, transfer of credit policy, accreditation, faculty information, class size, tuition and fee trends, price of attendance, financial aid, campus housing, student life and campus safety. U-CAN gives consumers easy access to information on average loans at graduation, undergraduate class-size breakdown and net tuition for hundreds of colleges. This information, which comes from the U.S. Department of Education's IPEDS survey and the Common Data Set, is often difficult for consumers to find and decipher.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Consumers Digest ranks Centre No. 1 in educational value among all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.