Pace Paw Print

Students now have a new resource for information when looking for colleges or universities to attend, whether for the first time or to transfer to.

Pace, along with about 600 other private colleges and universities, has joined the University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN), an online, national informational resource for college-bound students and their families. The website will be free to both consumers and the colleges and universities that participate.

U-CAN, developed and managed by the National Association of Independent College and Universities (NAICU), premiered last week on Sept. 26.

U-CAN was created, according to the press release by NAICU, in order to meet the "strong need for consumers and parents can use to evaluate colleges." Its services are based on feedback from, focus groups consisting of students and their parents as well as from Congress and the U.S. Department of Education.

"There are many consumer sources out there," said NAICU President David L. Warren. "But U-CAN offers something different."

Some features of U-CAN include 42 different categories that consumers can look at for each college or university profile, including student demographics, graduation rates, most common fields of study, and transfer of credit information. Students can search for colleges by city, state, distance from home, and affiliation. The U-CAN website, www.ucan-network.org, said they are considering adding more search options in future phases of the network. The information comes directly from the institutions themselves.

Other than Pace, current members of the network include Columbia University, Hofstra University and University of Pennsylvania. The U-CAN website also listed future members such as Brown University, Fordham University, and Sacred Heart University.

What makes U-CAN distinctive from other college information resources, according to Warren, is the fact that "institutions not only report cut and dry statistics but also have the opportunity to express what makes them special."

However, this new resource is only available to private or non-profit colleges or universities. The goal to quickly create U-CAN to address consumer and congress's demands caused NAICU to limit the website to private institutions, according to the U-CAN website. The website also stated they would consider allowing public universities to join in the future if the public showed interest.

To keep the information standard among the several hundreds of institutions throughout the country, U-CAN requests each member to follow guidelines regarding specific year and source for data.

In order to keep the information listed on the website, NAICU will be updating it frequently.

"This is just the beginning phase of U-CAN," said the website. "The evolutionary nature of this important online tool is driven by the need to get this new consumer informational resources operational with a minimum of delay."

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