In a review of statewide plans for assessing student learning at institutions of higher education, this paper argues that assessment, carefully planned to focus on students, can lead to an improvement in the communication and understanding between the academy and the polity. A brief section on the role of statewide assessment places it in a historical and legal context. A section on the research and its findings concludes that assessment is most useful if efforts are clearly centered on students by identifying subgroups of students who profit from their studies, identifying aspects of their experience, and by understanding how these provide enlightenment, engagement, and empowerment. The next section argues that funding formulas and budget request and decentralized assessment approaches have made institutions, rather than students, the primary object of analysis. The solution is formative assessment that documents how resources devoted to each major subgroup of students are paying off. Allocation of resources can then be made in terms of the proportion of any one student group served by each institution. The next section, on statewide initiatives, describes the Oregon state system of higher education's new statewide assessment that focuses on common learning criteria and assessment at multiple points in time. A Utah effort is also briefly described. (Contains 19 references.) (JB)