College Portrait
Georgia State University, along with other members of the public higher education community committed to greater accountability for student learning and development, is participating in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA). VSA has designed a common reporting template, the College Portrait, which provides consistent, comparable and transparent information on the undergraduate student experience aimed at helping prospective students and their families decide which college or university to attend.
College Portrait is the result of collaborative efforts of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State University and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) who together represent over 600 public institutions that enroll 7.5 million students and award 70% of bachelor’s degrees in the U.S annually.
Among the information provided in the College Portrait by participating colleges and universities is: degree offerings, cost of attendance, student characteristics, graduation rates, transfer rates, post-graduate plans, student engagement with learning, student perceptions of the university, and student learning outcomes commensurate with a baccalaureate degree. Such information may be useful as a first step in choosing a college, but numbers alone do not provide a complete picture of the intellectual and disciplinary diversity of a particular college or university.
Georgia State University’s College Portrait contains three sections of information. Section one includes characteristics of our student body, undergraduate success and progress rates, costs of attendance (including a cost calculator), financial aid awarded, degrees and areas of study offered, size of classes, student to faulty ratio, student housing, and campus safety information. Section two provides information on evaluations/assessments of student experiences on campus, including results of the National Survey of Student Engagement which we have been participating in since 2001. Section three provides information on student learning outcomes, including in 2010 reports from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which is being piloted in Fall 2008.
Georgia State University encourages you to visit our College Portrait, and those of other participating colleges and universities, to advance your understanding of the educational opportunities that await you. A website providing an overview of College Portrait and links to participating colleges and universities is available from the VSA web site. For more information on Georgia State University’s College Portrait, please contact Mary Finn, Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness at 404-413-2578 or mfinn@gsu.edu.
