I SAY NO

I think we do not need to have standardized testing for college level students.  I think it is complete overkill to do this and a total waste of money.  In some cases though you might say this is a good thing.

In the K-12 educational system this is a great tool for the teachers.  Scores from these exams can be used in order to find students that have problems and then give them some extra help.  If we were to do this for college students it might be of help to them.

I say that testing at this high of a level is overkill because I think they have had enough of this kind of testing and do not want to do anymore.

One recent study said that most college students lacked important skills such as complex literacy skills. A complex literacy skill from the study was interpreting a table about exercise and blood pressure. The same study did say though they had good intermediate literacy skills. An intermediate literacy skill was finding a place on the map.  This to me is very troublesome and certainly a reason to have these exams.

If the exam scores at this high of a level keep getting worse and worse will this cause major concern for employers wanting to hire recent college grads???  It could happen.  Could this mean we will have more employers wanting to see college transcripts before getting hired???  That could happen as well. A college transcript will not show how much partying they did in school, how hard they worked or even if they barely did any work at all in a college even if they got a 4.0 GPA though.

Will low-test scores cause people to not choose a certain college??? That could easily happen even with the super high increases in tuition we have today.

Will the NCAA adopt new rules and regulations on these test scores to make sure only the best quality in athletes are on the sports teams???  I think it could really happen.

I do think that the quality of college students is on the decline.  Class size and population of the college is the culprit for most of the colleges when it comes to having quality college grads.  I do not think that we will see colleges do a whole lot to improve scores though if they did this.

To comment on my commentary: RichardGinn@myeducationalplan.com

SOURCES

Arenson, Karen W. "Panel Explores Standard Tests for College" NY Times (2006) n. pag. Online. Internet. February 9, 2006
Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/education/09testing.html

"Study: most college students lack skills" USA Today & AP (2006) n. pag. Online. Internet. January 9, 2006
Available: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/
2006-01-19-college-tasks_x.htm

Declining By Degree Commentary website: http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/