The Common Data Set (CDS) initiative is a collaborative effort among college and university data providers and selected college guide publishers to standardize the data provided to the guides by the individual institutions.  Despite the initiative's name, CDS is not a set of data but rather an agreed-upon list of data items and definitions.  For more details, visit the CDS Initiative Web site.  The CDS items are grouped into 10 categories:

Since the CDS information is basically intended for public use, increasing numbers of colleges and universities are putting their CDS data on their Web sites.  This is important and useful data for a wide range of audiences -- certainly for prospective students and their families, but also for higher education funding organizations, news media representatives, and others.

Assembled below are links to the Common Data Set data at a wide range of private colleges and universities.