From the States.

The idea of a nationwide survey to examine the quality of undergraduate education has arisen in several venues in the U.S. One of the first times was eight years ago, when the notion of such a survey was mooted as a way to obtain a proxy measure of collegiate attainment as part of the National Education Goals process. The argument then, as now, was that much is known through research about the factors responsible for high gains in collegiate learning, embodied in such documents is the well-known Wingspread Seven Principles of Good Practice. Since that time, several states (most notably North Carolina) have instituted regular surveys that include good-practice items, but the idea of a national survey has remained just that-an idea.