A New Spin on the U-CAN Blog

The University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) provides information for prospective students and their parents on American private colleges and universities across a wide variety of characteristics. The goal of U-CAN was to encourage parents and students to sit around the kitchen table and compare schools with easy to read profiles.

The goal of the U-CAN Blog is to continue that conversation. Here, we will post information and stories about college admissions and hopefully get your feedback on the issues facing prospective students today.

If you have got ideas about what you’d like to see in the blog, please send us a note using the comments section.

For Participating Institution Contacts: U-CAN Update Schedule Survey

We've seen U-CAN grow to nearly 800 participating institutions over the past year and continue to refine the system so that it provides the information that consumers want, and is easy for institutions to use. A crucial factor in U-CAN's success is its comparability of information across institutions.

As many of you know, at the beginning of the project we established a semi-annual update schedule modeled after IPEDS reporting, with one update in the fall and another in late spring. Many of you commented during the fall update that this created some confusion, and that it would be useful to have just one update period per year.

We've been working through the various options, and ask for your input. We invite all U-CAN campus contacts to take a short (2 question) survey to indicate updating preferences. We'll use your input to help determine which type of schedule makes the most sense for the majority of U-CAN users. We ask that you submit your response by Wednesday, May 6.

Please take a moment to complete the survey, which is available online.

To give the choices context, we submit the following rationales:

Semi-Annual Updating

Pro: Data on U-CAN profiles will always be as current and up-to-date as that found on the Department of Education's College Navigator consumer info site and institutional Web sites. Con: Since not all information is updated at once, there has been some confusion over what should be updated, causing some institutions to update information in advance of when all institutions can provide it. This compromises data integrity and comparability, and misleads the public as to what data, from what year, they are looking at on individual profiles.

One Annual Update

Pro: Eliminates confusion associated with only updating certain data elements, and removes issues of data integrity and comparability as described above. Con: U-CAN profile data will not always be as current as that found on College Navigator - a lag time of 3-6 months could exist, depending on schedule.

When Should U-CAN Be Updated

May/June:
Pro: Financial aid and graduation statistics will be available on U-CAN before or simultaneously with those appearing on College Navigator

Con: Enrollment and other related data on U-CAN will be close to a year old, and will appear approximately 6 months after posting on College Navigator (i.e. Fall enrollment data will be input the following May/June).

August/September
Pros and Cons would largely depend on when institutions have their Fall enrollment data available - could be the same as pros and cons for May/June. This would also occur simultaneously with the IPEDS data collection cycle.

September/October
Pro: Fall enrollment data and related statistics would be available for input and thus appear on U-CAN in a timely manner.
Con: Financial aid/graduation statistics would appear on U-CAN approximately 3-4 months later than College Navigator, and the collection period would directly overlap with IPEDS. Another con is that tuition/financial information will not be posted until classes begin for a given year.