A proposal to begin a nationwide exit exam for all college students and linking the results to federal education aid is getting a chilly reception from Kansas University’s top administrators.

“I would be very skeptical of the value of a standardized testing, particularly if it’s government imposed,” KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway said. “That would be a level of intervention into higher education by the federal government that would be unparalleled.”

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spelling in September appointed a commission charged with exploring higher education costs and accountability and devising a comprehensive strategy for improving the nation’s colleges and universities.

“I think they’re good people asking questions that ought to be asked,” KU Provost David Shulenburger said.

But the standardized testing proposal, first aired several months ago, has been criticized.

Donna Shank, president of the Kansas Board of Regents, said it would be difficult to have a test that could work for all universities.

“The institutions across the nation and even within each state are so diverse and so different,” she said. “They all have different challenges and they serve different missions.”

KU currently gives a general education assessment to 100 fourth-year students each year. Three faculty members each interview the 100 students.

Is that enough to assure KU is serving its students well?

“I don’t know whether it’s enough or not,” Shulenburger said. “It’s something that I think has been useful for us over time.”

He said some schools have exit interviews, and graduates of the pharmacy school or the accounting program take standardized tests at the end of their studies.

Shulenburger, who will leave KU later this year to join the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, co-wrote a paper for the group outlining ways that universities can assure the public they are fulfilling their missions.

The paper calls for working with schools to come up with plans for testing that fit with each institution’s mission. And it calls for developing a better way to package information – from crime statistics to graduation rates – in a way that students can use to make an informed choice about where to go to school.

“To attempt to measure whether (universities have) met their objective by the same test suggests they’re all trying to do the same thing, and it’s just not true,” Shulenburger said.

The commission also has proposed dissolving the current accreditation system – which includes numerous accrediting bodies – and creating a new centralized National Accreditation Foundation.

The commission called for the change because it concluded that the current system lacks high enough standards, sufficient transparency and typically reviews schools every 10 years, which some say is not frequent enough.

Shulenburger said he hoped that uniform accreditation wouldn’t drive out diversity among institutions.

And the commission has called for streamlining the federal student aid program, collapsing 17 different aid programs to three or even one program.

A commission report calls the current system unduly complex and confusing to users, redundant in some cases and inefficient.

KU freshman Chris Pearson said he didn’t have any problems receiving financial aid and doesn’t see why the program needs changing.

“If it’s not broken, then don’t fix it,” he said.

“It’s hard for anybody to oppose efficiency,” Shulenburger said, noting he would need to see a specific plan before endorsing it. “The devil is in the details.”

Both administrators said they generally welcomed the commission looking at ways to improve higher education.

“Higher education is in a constant state of self study,” Hemenway said. “Frankly, I think that’s one of its strengths. I certainly have no problem with the commission trying to think outside of the box and challenging us to do a better job.”