Tests to get into college now being followed by tests to get out
This story also appeared at:
On weekend mornings all this winter, anxious high school juniors and seniors will be filing into school cafeterias to sweat through the SAT, ACT, and similar college entrance examinations as stern-looking proctors hover over them.
Such tests are among the long-established requirements for getting into college. But something new is afoot: Increasingly, students have to take a test to get out.
The advent of the college exit test is being driven largely by parents, legislators, and others intent on making sure they’re getting their money’s worth from universities and colleges — and by employers who complain that graduates arrive surprisingly ill-prepared.
The University of Central Missouri, which requires undergraduates to pass an exit test. (Photo: University of Central Missouri)
“There is a groundswell from the public about whether a college degree is worth what people are paying for it,” said Stephanie Davidson, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University System of Ohio. “People are asking for tangible demonstrations of what students know.”
Ohio this year started testing candidates for education degrees before they graduate. TheWisconsin Technical College System requires its graduating students to take tests, or to submit portfolios or research papers or other proof of what they know. And all undergraduates at theUniversity of Central Missouri have to pass a test called the College Basic Academic Subjects Examination before they are allowed to graduate.
The trend unmasks a flabbergasting reality: that those expensive university degrees may not actually prove a graduate is sufficiently educated to compete in the workforce. And it advances the seemingly