Thomas DiLorenzo, an Austrian School economist and professor at Maryland's Loyola College, insists that universities and colleges that abandon SAT and ACT mandates are saying "studying, learning, and educating yourself is for suckers." His own Loyola College recently decided that SAT and ACT scores would be optional for applicants:

Why study when grade inflation and affirmative action will get you into Harvard, where even more grade inflation will guarantee that you graduate?

Some alumni are understandably unappy about this, for they correctly anticipate that the dumbing down of their alma mater will devalue their hard-earned degrees.  (They don’t understand that in today’s world of higher education “diversity,” i.e., institutionalized discrimination against white males,  trumps everything.  How naive of those privileged white males (to borrow the language of the university diversity bureaucracy).

I'm unconvinced by DiLorenzo's premise that the SAT and ACT provide "objective" evidence that is superior to "subjective" high school grades. Many of the arguments against using grades apply to standardized test scores. High school GPA vary among school districts -- not just because of "grade inflation," as DiLorenzo suggests -- but SAT/ACT scores are also influenced by geography and socioeconomic standing. Students from wealthier families can devote the time and resources to specialized training for standardized tests. Nothing wrong with this, of course. But it's fallacy to conflate one's ability to complete college-level coursework with performance on a single test administered under non-collegiate conditions.

DiLorenzo links to an op-ed by Richard Fogal, a Loyola alumnus upset by the decision to make the SAT and ACT optional:

This decision threatens to directly undermine, financially depreciate and otherwise academically devalue the bachelor's degrees granted by Loyola.

Many of my fellow alumni, current students at Loyola and many others within the Loyola community are in agreement that this decision is an ill-conceived and disingenuous way to achieve the university's stated goal of increasing diversity. We are further offended by the disrespect shown to us by Loyola, which refused to notify or consult with its newest alumni on this matter.

The university offers no assurances that prospects being admitted into the undergraduate class of 2014 will not just cheat their way into Loyola, or that GPAs will be weighted any differently depending on where one pursued a secondary education. Few reputable educational institutions require no form of standardized testing - relying on intangibles and GPAs alone - when considering admissions standards.

Again, I question these premises. How would a decision regarding future admissions policies "academically devalue" degrees granted before the policies took effect? And how does one value or "devalue" a degree? Value is subjective and exists only in the mind of the person making the judgment. Fogal might disagree, but certainly a prominent Austrian scholar like DiLorenzo would not.

As for the argument that people will "cheat their way into Loyola" in the absence of an SAT/ACT mandate, I would note that it's far easier to cheat on a single test then to forge an entire academic transcript. Just recently there have been news reports that a University of Memphis student had someone take the SAT for him in order to meet eligibility requirements for a basketball scholarship.

Finally, the notion that "few reputable educational institutions require no form of standardized testing" suggests that higher education is a cartel that allows for no competition. Obviously, the norm is to require SAT or ACT scores. But this isn't some sacred cow that can never be challenged. Competition in the marketplace allows for such experimentation. Maybe it won't work, maybe it will. But simply stomping your foor and saying, "It's always been done this way and cannot be done any differently" is the cry of the cartelist. If nothing else, the decision by some schools to make the SAT and ACT optional might prompt the producers of those tests to improve their products.

"Metrics" are not inherently good or bad. They sare simply statistics that measure a particular set of inputs. They do not, however, provide "objective" standards of judgment. All judgments are subjective, including on which metrics to use and why. Consider Major League Baseball, a sport dominated by various metrics. Traditional measures of value -- batting averages, saves, wins -- have been challenged by newer measures -- WHIP, OBP, and win shares -- and the sport has improved as a result. If the metrics used to assess college applicants are insufficient, then the solution is to develop new, more useful metrics. Simply relying on a single historical metric of limited value is not the answer