Ohio University, along with other colleges in the state’s network of public schools, is joining a national program that gives consumer information to prospective students.

Earlier this month, President Roderick McDavis and other higher education officials committed the University System of Ohio schools to join the Voluntary System of Accountability, a program that allows the public to review information on each university’s performance and to compare institutional data to other schools nationwide.

“The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of all of our institutions and that begins with providing data to the people of this state that quantifies what we are doing,” said Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, the state’s top education official. “You do that by presenting data in an identical format — apples to apples.”

Within the next 90 days, OU and other public schools statewide will display basic consumer information — from tuition costs to graduation rates to living characteristics — on the University System of Ohio’s Web site.

In addition to the nuts and bolts of college performance, schools will present information on student experiences and perceptions through surveys such as the National Survey of Student Engagement, the results of which often go unreleased by many participating schools.

OU’s National Survey of Student Engagement data is freely available from the Office of Institutional Research.
This change will mark the first time college information for Ohio schools will be housed in one location in a common format, McDavis said.

“(Now) you have to go to each institution, and even then you may not have all this information available,” McDavis said. “This is a huge step forward in helping prospective families make that huge decision.”

Fingerhut said the long-term goal is reporting the “value-added” component, or the development of a student during undergraduate years. The University System of Ohio schools have four years to establish a common method of measuring student development.

“They’ve given us four years, but we want something within the next couple years,” McDavis said.

OU has had a committee to determine the best instrument for measuring the undergraduate experience for over a year now, but it has yet to make a recommendation, McDavis said.

Beyond offering students information that hopefully will bring them to Ohio, the system of accountability could point out weak spots in the state’s public higher education, Fingerhut said.

“When you can compare us to other institutions across the country, I think that will motivate us in areas where we are not performing as well,” he said.