I've been advocating for this kind of ‘exit exam’, and it doesn't have to be ‘federally controlled’. Plus, such testing would have to be fact-based, and not subjectively interpretable (e.g. no essays, no opinion-based questions). For lots of subjects (biology, math, engineering, chemistry, accounting, foreign languages, anthropology, geology, business, etc.) it would be very straightforward to test based on universally accepted fundamental skills and knowledge. Medicine and Law already have their respective ‘exit exams’. It would be more difficult to do this for some degrees (e.g. english majors, history - maybe, because of the bias and subjectivity involved in the interpretation of history, etc.), but it's doable.
As we move to more and more ‘online’ education, and less bricks and mortar-based education, we will need standardized means to determine competency. It will, ultimately, make education cheaper, IMHO.
Nope, will never work. ANY “exit exam” must be standardized to be valid. To be standardized, someone must control. If the states, it will not be standardized.
There is no way to keep this out of the feds’s hands, which is to say, the elite academics. Trust me. I’ve just retired from almost 40 years as a college prof and I’ve seen the way such standards come into existence at every level-—elementary, high school, college. You would have PRECISELY the Marxist, non-fact based questions dominate.