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It takes a great deal of spending to support higher education collectively by the states in America. At least $70 million is spent towards this every year. However, there is a feeling of being in the dark for the public as well as governors as to what exactly do students learn or what they are taught during the time they spend in colleges.

This information is absolutely essential and has to be provided to policymakers for them to determine and assess the most cost effective strategies and investments. This information can also help students, families and employers to gauge the quality of education provided by different higher education institutions.

Governors have to insist on enhanced higher education accountability in States by providing outcomes of student learning. This will enable them to extend to a larger segment of the society high quality post secondary education and also effectively restrain and cut down on college costs. The system of accountability initiated by Governors must provide support as well as distinguish between the institutional assessment and standards and state level systems.

While institutions can reflect their own priorities, accountability at the state level must focus on state wide objectives. Governors must focus on university or public college undergraduates calling for their learning outcomes and also assess these outcomes on a regular basis. Objectives for assessment of outcomes must be based on student demonstration of information, quantitative, communication and strong analytical skills. Competencies of students thus assessed must be reported publicly through metrics such as institutional assessments and state wide sampling.

Traditionally, inputs and activity measures by institutions such as time-to-degree, retention, enrolment, admission standards and funding per student were used to measure higher education performance by policymakers. Today, there is a great evolution in the education policy at the state level. Everyone including higher education leaders, legislators and Governors want to know how exactly resources are being used to develop and foster knowledge in educational institutions. This is possible only by measuring outputs and student preparation levels.

Increased interest of Governors in student output assessment results from a strong economic imperative and need to expand college achievement and enhance accessibility. There is a strong suggestion that there will be a decline in the future college educated workers due to restructuring the system favouring skilled jobs, changing state demographic profiles and requirements of upcoming  baby-boom.

By the year 2010, the country will be short of at least ten million post secondary college educated skill labour. This shortage of workforce can be set right only by expanding access to colleges and helping students achieve.

Though there has been significant expansion in providing access to everyone including the ethnic groups, this has not been paralleled with degree achievement gains. According to statistics only 54 percent of the undergraduate students persist and complete their degrees within six years. Statistics say that Asian and White degree attainment rates are at least twenty percent higher than Afro-Americans and Hispanics. Student accountability and enhanced institutional standards can address this issue to a certain extent.