Universities Weblog

With the enormous amount of information available in this day and time, many students and educators feel that colleges and universities should make their 'stats' known, too. Just how good of an institution is it, and will you benefit from it…or should you head somewhere else?

Americans who know every detail about college football rivals would have trouble finding information to assess the quality of education at those universities.

Average yards rushing per game? Sure. Average gain in writing or analytical skills in four years? Five-year graduation rate? Students' access to faculty? Probable cost of a diploma? Don't look for it on the Web site.

In a report released in September, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education called for creating a national higher-education database that would help families compare colleges by showing which are the most effective in helping students earn a degree.

That's important to know: Half of students who go to college don't earn a degree in six years. Graduation rates tend to be highest at selective colleges and lowest at colleges that admit students with minimal grades and test scores, but there are significant differences at every level.

It's certainly an intriguing argument. Do you want to 'know all' about your school?

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