Standardized Tests in College?

When U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings suggested a year ago that American colleges and universities consider using standardized tests to measure performance, the outrage in academia was loud and swift. Critics worry that No Child Left Behind type accountability measures are being unleashed on college campuses.

But now some influential college leaders seem to have had a change of heart. This week, two big consortiums of public colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC), agreed to launch a Web site that will allow applicants, their parents and legislators to compare undergraduate experiences, costs and eventually—test scores that measure "student outcomes." 

Participating colleges will begin administering standardized tests to see how much test scores measuring writing, analytic ability and critical thinking go up for students between freshman and senior year. The site, called College Portrait,  is still being tested but a preliminary version is now online. There are about 550 member schools in the two groups. So far, about half have agreed to become part of College Portrait.

The consortiums are reacting, at least in part, to Spellings's call for colleges to be transparent about their costs and what students were getting in exchange for their tuition. She challenged institutions to devise new measures—namely to start using standardized tests—to figure out how much students were learning and to make public information about how graduates fared in the job market or in graduate school.

"The Spellings Commission was a catalyst," says David Shulenburger, vice president for academic affairs at NASULGC. "It pointed us in a direction that we didn't want to go—which was mandatory testing. But most schools have come to understand what the test is and the need for it."

Over the next year, participating institutions will provide information on a three-page template that describes degree offerings and class profiles—details that can be found in almost any college guide. The institutions will also begin adding details about expenses, including a college-cost calculator, so students can compare the cost of a four-year degree from one school with another. The participating schools will also provide results from student surveys about campus life as well as scholastic and intellectual engagement.