Higher education has become a master of assessment.  I have been wondering lately if we are actually measuring the things that truly matter.  We are so tied to what our accreditors want to see that I wonder if we are losing site of the big picture.   Does it matter if we can check every box on our learning outcomes if students graduate yet didn’t develop the skills to be employable?

What is the main reason students go to college?  My personal experience tells me that the main reason has something to do with jobs and making money.  Are we preparing them to do this?  Are we requiring enough hands on project based learning to build their resumes to make them marketable?  One college internship doesn’t seem like enough anymore.

Maybe we should be measuring our success by their success AFTER they graduate, not just how well they moved through our course and degrees?

What are your thoughts on this?