A proposed addition to the Higher Education Act would require colleges and all other institutions of higher learning to issue report cards grading themselves, much as public elementary and secondary schools will have to do starting next school year. While the report cards make some sense for lower institutions, they would simply waste time and money if colleges did the same.

If Congress passes the proposal, colleges will have to compile statistics on how many students continue their studies, how many graduate and how many find employment afterward. However, prospective students have already created a market for this type of information and can easily find it in other sources such as U.S. News and World Report rankings and numerous publications specifically devoted to profiling schools. Universities already have incentive to compile and publish such data because not doing so automatically raises doubts about an institution’s quality for prospective students.

Setting up a system to manage college report cards and requiring schools themselves to submit the data again would only take up federal education funds and give schools another reason to hike tuitions. In addition, the compiled statistics would not even address many students’ concerns such as what a campus looks like, whether a specific club exists, the quality of sports teams, course offerings or living conditions in dorms. The basic information students need to decide which schools to investigate further is already widely available – and often sent directly to their mailboxes.

A report card system could provide beneficial information about public elementary and secondary schools, but should be carefully implemented. Parental demands for such information – which will include test scores, graduation rates and teacher quality – are not currently met by any central guide, so creating a central system can help disseminate that information to parents, make schools accountable and help officials evaluate schools. But, just as with colleges, statistics do not always accurately represent a school’s quality. The report cards must clearly identify what the numbers are actually based on and cannot be used for snap judgments. Also, officials should focus on finding out why the statistics are at certain levels and ensure underlying problems are addressed. Otherwise, the report cards could encourage teachers to grade easier to keep their jobs or give a school a bad rating only based on the numbers for one particularly small subgroup or because of a particularly large special education program.

While report cards for public elementary and secondary schools will provide some useful information if used carefully, report cards for colleges and universities would not be similarly valuable. Congress should not pass the proposal requiring institutions of higher learning to assess themselves because gathering the information would only waste money and duplicate existing efforts. In this case, the more you know is just redundant.