The UW System announced Wednesday it will launch a website to help prospective students compare UW colleges and universities statewide.

At its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, the UW System Board of Regents will discuss the Voluntary System of Accountability, a national project that will provide public accountability reports.

The “College Portrait” website will provide information to prospective students, as well as parents and legislators. The website will provide standardized information, in a five-page report, regarding the costs of attendance, degree offerings, living arrangements, activities offered, the rates of graduation, and data from student surveys.

“Most of the data that we’re talking about has already been gathered, and in many cases published by most universities and colleges around the country,” UW System spokesperson David Giroux said. “What was lacking was a standardized approach to how that data is reported and access to that data.”

“It is very difficult for people to make an apples-to-apples comparison of one college to another.”

He said the UW campuses would be one of the first systems to use these reporting tools, however, other universities nationally will be invited to join the initiative later this month.

The site is expected to be up early next year.

According to a statement, UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells, along with several UW staff, led a task force that developed the national VSA project.

The project is a partnership between the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, funded through the Lumina Foundation.

“The University of Wisconsin remains as committed as we ever have been to not only accountability but also communication,” Giroux said.