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Database Has Score On Private Colleges

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By ADAM EMERSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - If you want to know how Eckerd College in St. Petersburg ranks among its peers, look no further than the perennial U.S. News and World Report compilation of America's Best Colleges.

But if you find such rankings 'silly,' as Eckerd President Donald Eastman does, a trade group for private colleges is pushing a new Web site it says will provide more transparency in researching higher education.

The U-CAN database offers many of the criteria U.S. News editors publish in its survey, such as SAT scores, class sizes and acceptance rates.

You'll find no schools ranked, however. Dozens of private schools nationwide refuse to participate in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, including Eckerd. Many have signed on to U-CAN, which they say responds with information families want.

On the new network, Eckerd publishes the percentage of students who are women (56), percentage of students receiving loans (74) and the percentage of students living on campus (96).

'It is not tweaked into this silly sort of ranking system,' said Eastman, whose school is ranked in the third of four 'tiers' in the U.S. News and World Report ranking of Best Liberal Arts Colleges.

Although private college presidents who signed on have heralded the new network, they acknowledged that U.S. News is a household name. The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which produces U-CAN, is not.
Rollins College Joining U-CAN
Rollins College in Winter Park is joining the U-CAN network, but its president was not among the majority of liberal-arts college presidents who met in June and denounced the U.S. News rankings.

Rollins Provost Roger Casey said he might as well send accurate information to a magazine that would seek the data even without his participation. Schools boycotting the magazine have done so only with damage to their ranking.

Rollins is ranked No. 1 among master's universities in the South.

But Casey calls U-CAN 'a great national tool for private colleges. The more sources of information out there, the better informed families will be.'

When colleges protested the U.S. News rankings, the magazine's editor, Brian Kelly, told The New York Times then that he applauded any effort to come up with new data, adding that 'if a few presidents don't want to participate, we understand.'

Consumer-Friendly Information

Officials with the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities say an alternative to other college guides only partly drove the launch of U-CAN. The network also is a response to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' call for colleges and universities to provide more consumer-friendly information tools.

The association's effort is only one colleges nationwide are undertaking. Roland King, a spokesman for the private schools' trade group, said the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges is working on a similar effort for public schools.

Currently, only private colleges and universities are featured on U-CAN. Besides Eckerd and Rollins, 13 other Florida schools are on, or plan to join, the network.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or

aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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