One glaring problem with the proposal is that, even where we can expect university curricula have even treatment across universities (the hard sciences, say), u

One glaring problem with the proposal is that, even where we can expect university curricula have even treatment across universities (the hard sciences, say), university curricula simply are _not_ the same. Nor are the students who take them. Does anyone really think that courses taught at (say) regional universities and the students that get through them can be measured alongside the courses/students at top tier universities? That's unlikely. For one, the students were more or less uniformly measured going in and found to differ significantly. Second, I doubt the curricula are comparable in terms of depth and coverage (I can't prove it, of course, but my experience suggests that this is so). To be clear, I am _not_ saying there are not good courses/universities outside the top tier. I know of some. But I think that on balance, my claim would hold up.