The Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) and its College Portraits website is a college search tool for prospective students and valuable accountability tool for public institutions.
Students and their families can use the College Portraits to find a simple, straightforward presentation of comparable information that comes directly from public universities at no cost to the student or their family. Rising college costs require students and families to make careful, informed decisions about which institution is the “best fit.” Much is gained from helping them make sound choices using reliable information that can be compared across institutions.
Participating institutions use the College Portraits to highlight common information prospective students and families seek in an easily understood format. College Portraits data elements include: admissions requirements, retention and graduation rates, campus community highlights, academic programs, safety, and cost of attendance, to name a few. In 2010, a College Affordability Estimator net price calculator was added to help prospective students estimate their individual net cost to attend a specific university. The Estimator is available at no additional charge for participating institutions and meets the requirements of the Higher Education Opportunity Act.
Institutions and systems can use the College Portraits to meet accountability requirements from governing boards, state legislatures, state coordinating offices, and other outside groups, often reducing their burden and duplication of effort. The College Portraits can also be used during the accreditation process as evidence of student learning outcomes, institutional improvement, transparency, and commitment to the public good.
The VSA is a joint project of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) in collaboration with the higher education community. VSA institutions represent more than half of all public four-year institutions, 66 percent of all APLU members, and 60 percent of APLU and AASCU's joint membership. VSA participating institutions enroll 63 percent of undergraduate students attending public universities.
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Famous quotes containing the words voluntary and/or system:
“Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills such as men would have them.”
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“Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)