Excerpts from the following letter appeared in the May 16, 2003 issue of The Chonicle of Higher Education.

To the Editor,

The Career College Association's proposed plan for new accountability standards represents a disturbingly narrow vision of college outcomes for the 21st century ("Will Congress Require Colleges to Grade Themselves?" April 4, 2003). They are absolutely correct that prospective students, their parents, and taxpayers deserve to be well informed about what colleges and universities are offering to today's students and what outcomes they are achieving. The criteria they propose to measure these outcomes, however, fall far short of what is really needed and divert attention away from the important work of raising levels of achievement for all students.

The right point of departure for improving accountability in higher education is not graduation rates nor is it employer satisfaction surveys. Accountability across the entire K-16 system should begin with a shared focus on the knowledge, skills, and responsibilities Americans will need for a world of unprecedented complexity. Every college student, whatever her chosen institution or major, deserves a solid liberal education that prepares her for her intersecting roles as citizens in a diverse and globally engaged democracy; contributors to a dynamic economy; and makers of meaningful lives-and colleges should, indeed, be held accountable for achieving this ambitious goal.

Our organization, the Association of American Colleges and Universities is sponsoring dialogues all across the country about the outcomes of a college education for the 21st century built on our recently released report, Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College. Business leaders, educators, students, parents, public officials and civic leaders participating in these dialogues understand that the outcomes of a college education extend far beyond attainment of one's first job.

Our board chair, John Noonan, quoted in this article, also makes the important point that different kinds of colleges and universities will certainly have different missions and varied approaches to providing this high quality learning for students. The higher education community should and can come together to establish a set of goals and broad frameworks for college learning outcomes. Further, we should and can work with the K-12 sector to bring about these outcomes for all students seeking a college education. Developing a new federal accounting requirement that requires schools to answer the simplistic set of questions proposed by the Career College Association will certainly not do the job of raising levels of achievement for all students-surely the more important goal to be pursuing at this time.

Sincerely,

Carol Geary Schneider
President
Association of American Colleges and Universities