WASHINGTON, DC—The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) is proud to announce an update of our interactive college choice tool, WhatWillTheyLearn.com. The What Will They Learn?® (WWTL) project evaluates the general education programs of over 1,100 U.S. public and private colleges and universities with a stated liberal arts mission. The website presents these data through interactive tools and maps, allowing users to compare institutions nationwide.
“What’s unique about WWTL is that we evaluate what students are learning,” says ACTA Director of Curricular Improvement Veronica Mayer Bryant. “Specifically, we grade each school on the strength of its core curriculum, evaluating what colleges should be teaching students. No other college search tool or ranking system measures academics with this depth.”
The newly redesigned WhatWillTheyLearn.com is a one-stop shop where college-bound students, parents, high school counselors, and policymakers can become informed about what students are learning on campuses today. Not only can users see the ratings ACTA gives each school based on its core curriculum requirements, but they can also view data on tuition rates, student-to-faulty ratios, the climate for free speech on campus, and more. New features allow users to see nationwide data at a glance and explore schools with an expanded set of search filters. Additionally, our new member module allows users to access new search features, including religious affiliation and campus setting, with more to come.
“With our updates, WhatWillTheyLearn.com is now an even more powerful search tool for learning about over 1,100 American colleges and universities. We hope that students and parents will use this site to inform themselves about the general education requirements at the schools they are considering, as well as the wealth of other data offered on the site,” says ACTA Vice President of Policy Bradley Jackson. “With the cost of higher education higher than ever, it is necessary to choose your school wisely. We hope that the new WhatWillTheyLearn.com will help many families do just that.”
ACTA President Michael Poliakoff states, “ACTA has been working day and night for over two decades to advocate for academic excellence in higher education. With the new and improved WWTL website, we take yet another step toward making reliable curricular information accessible to all college-seeking parents and students. We hope that their choices in favor of strong curricula and academic excellence will help drive greater change in the academy. The consequences of failing this generation of students are too apparent to need spelling out; the task ahead of us is a serious one.”
MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org
Launched in 1995, we are the only organization that works with alumni, donors, trustees, and education leaders across the United States to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives an intellectually rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price.
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