The VSA is a partnership between the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. MSU is a member of both groups.

Data includes institutional information, including enrollment and financial information, said Christine Keller, executive director of the VSA.

“There’s a lot of information out there, but it’s hard to compare across institutions and it’s hard to find it for the most part,” Keller said.

Provost Kim Wilcox said officials don’t worry about MSU data going up against other public universities across the nation.

“We enjoy being compared to other universities because we believe we always fare very well in comparisons,” Wilcox said.

Almost two years ago, leaders from the two groups sat down to decide how to present an institution’s data to potential students.

The idea for a standard format filled with the same data resulted from the meeting and officials from participating institutions, including MSU, met for a series of discussions about what data to include and how it would look.

Political theory sophomore Kristin Babbie wished she could have compared side-by-side data when deciding between MSU and Grand Valley State University.

“That would be useful to compare programs,” she said.

Last December, the first batch of college portraits appeared on university Web sites.

Although the portraits gave students the power to choose what data to use in their search, the new tool lacked a component for comparing schools.

Keller said the group began creating College Portrait almost a year ago so students could easily look up and compare data between schools.

Keller said she expects the site to host close to 300 schools by the end of the first year.