Press Release

DegreeVerify Expands To 600 Colleges; Includes 40% Of All US Degrees

Newest Participants Include University of Florida and University of Minnesota

HERNDON, VA, December 2, 2003 - The National Student Clearinghouse, the nation's most trusted source for degree and enrollment information, today announced that its degree verification service, DegreeVerify, has grown to 600 participating institutions. Two of the country's five largest universities have become the latest institutions to sign up for DegreeVerify: the University of Florida and the University of Minnesota. DegreeVerify is free to participating colleges and universities.

Launched three years ago, DegreeVerify is the largest single source of degree data, and contains information on more than 40% of all degrees awarded in the US. The number of institutions that have signed up for DegreeVerify has doubled in one year. The Clearinghouse expects the service to provide access to half of all degrees ever issued by next summer.

Participating in DegreeVerify frees colleges and universities from the administrative burden of processing degree verifications. Requestors can confirm degrees via www.degreeverify.org, or integrate the DegreeVerify Web service directly into their internal applications. The Clearinghouse is also the only provider to support manual, EDI and real-time Web Services options to participating institutions.

More than 10,000 requestors use DegreeVerify each year, including many of the country's leading background screening firms and employers. Monthly transaction volume has grown nearly tenfold over the last two years.

"DegreeVerify has rapidly become the primary educational verification tool for commercial verifiers, who are using it in record numbers," said Daniel Boehmer, President of the National Student Clearinghouse, "The value of providing a single automated source for degree records is reflected in the growing number of firms that are opting to integrate DegreeVerify into their case management and candidate tracking software via Web services."

For a complete list of participating institutions and more information on the DegreeVerify program, please visit the Clearinghouse website at www.degreeverify.org.

About The National Student Clearinghouse

The National Student Clearinghouse is the largest enrollment and degree verification service in the US. A non-profit organization established by the higher education community in 1993, the Clearinghouse serves as a central repository and single point of contact for the collection and timely exchange of accurate, comprehensive enrollment, degree and certificate records on behalf of participating institutions. 

More than 2,700 colleges, representing 91% of the nation's enrollment, participate in the Clearinghouse. Student loan providers, employers, student credit issuers, student health insurance providers, the federal government and others access the Clearinghouse's registry over 100 million times annually to conduct electronic student record verifications.

For more information, visit www.studentclearinghouse.org.

National Student Clearinghouse Contact:
Kathleen Dugan
Marketing Director
703-742-4208
dugan@studentclearinghouse.org