The assessment of student progress ("value added") between entering and leaving a college or university is important in any evaluation of an institution's effectiveness. In assessing progress, five propositions are worth noting. First, the assessment should deal with several dimensions of student growth, not knowledge alone. Second, there is no single technique (e.g., use of standardized tests) that can measure with precision the students' growth on any dimension: multiple measures are needed. Third, simply subtracting an entrance score from an exit score within a single institution or program will not suffice: progress in one program needs to be compared with progress in others. Fourth, the assessment of student attainments should be based on faculty judgments. Those judgments can be expressed in a systematic way that will render them comparable over place and time, without losing their subtlety, through incorporating "benchmark performances" that are chosen by faculty in the grading of student work. Fifth, to be useful in improving education, the data about student progress must be collected for a purpose, accumulated periodically over time, and related to other information such as changes that have been made in the curriculum. Used in that way, "value added" information can serve as a powerful tool in institutional self-improvement. (Author/JAZ)