The Lumina Foundation has been carefully watching the Bologna Process and is engaged in research to determine how aspects of it which set out learning and degree requirements can be brought to the United States. It is circulating a draft of a degree qualifications profile (PDF) that is causing quite a stir in leadership circles.

The following is quoted from an Inside Higher Ed article by Doug Lederman.

"Institutions are similarly sidestepping public calls to clarify what their degrees represent in terms of student accomplishment by employing sample-based testing and assessment programs that say little about learning and even less about what all students should attain," the document states. "In the absence of clear statements of intended learning outcomes, confusion and misunderstanding are to be expected, and they currently prevail."

Statements of that sort may stoke concerns among faculty and other groups that a process that starts with defining what degree earners need to know and be able to do will inevitably lead to an attempt to set national higher education standards, which many would oppose.