WASHINGTON, DC (September 28, 2008) – The College PortraitTM
website provides high school students, parents, guidance counselors and
other stakeholders with access to basic, comparable information about
student characteristics, costs, student experience and learning outcomes
for 302 public four-year colleges and universities presented in a
user-friendly format. The new website is launching today at: www.collegeportraits.org.
College PortraitTM is a product of the Voluntary System of AccountabilityTM
project, a partnership between the National Association of State
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) with funding from
Lumina Foundation for Education.
Since unveiling the College PortraitTM report format and
initiating the recruiting effort in November 2007, nearly 60 percent of
the 520 member institutions of the two higher education associations
have agreed to participate in the project and 194 have already posted a
College PortraitTM. This represents four-year institutions
enrolling some 3 million undergraduates and nearly 60 percent of the
total undergraduate enrollment in four-year public colleges and
universities.
“The College PortraitTM places America’s four-year public
colleges and universities at the forefront of the higher education
accountability movement,” said Peter McPherson, president of NASULGC.
“College PortraitTM is designed to be trustworthy source of
reliable data for prospective students, families, policymakers and the
general public. It becomes the only voluntary accountability program
that includes student learning outcomes and easily comparable
information for a majority of the nation’s public four-year colleges and
universities.”
“No one should be surprised that public higher education has taken
the lead on accountability,” said Constantine W. (Deno) Curris,
president of AASCU. “Our institutions have a long history of commitment
to public accountability and learning outcomes. College PortraitTM
is being unveiled at a time when severe financial constraints for both
families and state governments increase our obligation to provide
dependable, accurate information in keeping with our public trust.”
CollegePortrait.org
The website provides an overview of the College PortraitTM report and an interactive map with links to all participating four-year public colleges and universities.
“The new website provides a convenient, single location for high
school students, parents and others to learn how to use and where to
find the College PortraitsTM,” said Christine Keller, executive director of VSATM.
Website visitors can view a sample College PortraitTM,
which includes descriptions and explanations of the data contained in
each report. An interactive map allows users to easily locate
participating colleges by state and includes links to each institution’s
College PortraitTM, general website and an email address to request admissions information.
College PortraitsTM are divided into three sections:
Student and Family Information, Student Experiences and Perceptions, and
Student Learning Outcomes.
The three-page Student and Family Information
section addresses issues such as cost of attendance, degree offerings,
living arrangements, student characteristics, graduation rates, transfer
rates, and post-graduate plans. The College Cost Calculator
enables students and their families to accurately estimate the net cost
of attending a participating college or university. The Student Success and Progress Rate,
using data from the National Student Clearinghouse, provides an
accurate picture of student progress within the higher education system
and offers a valuable alternative to the current method of reporting
graduation rates.
“We are particularly proud of the cost calculator and the progress
rate measure,” said David Shulenburger, vice president, academic affairs
at NASULGC. “Studies have demonstrated that for many students,
especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the
perceptions about the cost of college are a major stumbling block to
attendance. The progress rate measure will provide insight to student
progress in an era when many students attend more than one institution
in pursuit of a degree.”
The second section, Student Experiences and Perceptions,
provides a snapshot of student experiences and activities and their
perceptions of a particular college or university. Participating
institutions can report the results from one of four student engagements
surveys: College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ), College
Senior Survey (CSS), National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), and
University of California Undergraduate Student Experience Survey
(UCUES). The survey results focus on six specific areas of student
engagement: group learning, active learning, experiences with diverse
groups of people and ideas, student satisfaction, institution commitment
to student learning and success, and student interaction with faculty
and staff. This type of information is important as students who are
actively involved in their own learning and development are more likely
to be successful in college.
Student Learning Outcomes, the final section,
focuses on student learning using two methods: links to
institution-specific outcomes data such as program assessments and
professional licensure exams and a pilot project to measure student
learning gains in critical thinking (including analytic reasoning) and
written communication through one of three examinations: Collegiate
Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP), Measure of Academic
Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) or the Collegiate Learning Assessment
(CLA).
The pilot project requires participating institutions to select from
one of three instruments to measure broad cognitive skills. Skills will
be measured at the institution level across all academic disciplines.
Results will be described as the learning gains between the freshman and
senior years and as the actual average test scores for freshmen and
seniors.
Since the measurement of student learning at the institutional level
is not widespread, many institutions will need a period of time to find
the best methods of administration and to determine how to use the test
results to improve their educational programs before making the results
of the outcomes tests public. For a period of four years, institutions
may choose not to publicly report test results. After the four-year
period is concluded, institutions will report and update the results at
least once every three years.
The VSATM project and development of College PortraitTM
has benefitted from the involvement of more than 80 higher education
administrators and faculty members from more than 70 NASULGC and AASCU
institutions over a two-year period. Data elements included in the
College PortraitTM were identified based on input from student/family
focus groups, feedback from the higher education community and higher
education research.
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Founded in 1887, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges
(NASULGC, A Public University Association), is an association of public
research universities, land-grant institutions, and many state public
university systems. Its 218 members enroll more than 4.7 million
students and award nearly one million degrees annually. With nearly $30
billion in research, NASULGC-member universities include 10 of the top
20 universities in total federal spending on research and development in
science and engineering. As the nation's oldest higher education
association, NASULGC is dedicated to excellence in learning, discovery
and engagement. For more information visit www.nasulgc.org.
AASCU is the leadership association of 420 public colleges and universities
Delivering America's Promise through their common commitments to access,
affordability and educational opportunity. Enrolling more than 3
million students, these institutions fulfill the expectations of a
public university by working for the public good through education,
stewardship and engagement, thereby improving the lives of people in
their community, their region and their state.