WASHINGTON — U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told the nation's collegiate accreditation agencies to improve the way they judge the quality of U.S. universities, calling it a critical part of improving school performance.

Spellings told agency representatives meeting yesterday in Washington that their rating methods leave colleges too focused on "inputs" such as the high school grades of incoming freshmen. Colleges instead should focus on outputs, such as job placements of graduating seniors, Spellings said.

"We can do more. We can do better," and it should be done quickly, Spellings told the accreditation officials, whose agencies are independent entities that work under authority granted by the Education Department.

Spellings convened the session after her yearlong Commission on the Future of Higher Education identified the accreditation process as a major obstacle to improving the quality of U.S. colleges. The colleges said they're open to change, as long as it recognizes the diversity among various types of schools.

Asking accreditation agencies to place greater emphasis on outcomes, rather than inputs, is "appropriate and fine, and something that the higher education community simply needs to work on," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education.

"The trouble will come if the secretary wants some single comparable standard that would be used by all accreditors for all institutions," said Hartle, whose group is the major Washington-based university association, representing about 1,800 colleges and educational organizations.

Spellings made clear that's not her intent. "This is not a place where a one-size-fits-all approach is either desirable or workable," she said.

The accreditation process is a critical, if little recognized and understood, element of the higher education process in the U.S., Spellings said.

Part of the problem is that repercussions are severe for colleges that fail to win accreditation — including a cut-off in eligibility for federally backed student loans — leaving agencies reluctant to impose what would amount to a "death knell" for a school, she said.

One solution might involve a more varied set of grades for schools, Spellings said. Any change in the process also needs to provide prospective students with more information about the quality of the schools they are considering, she said.

Spellings said she was not ready to set any timetable for action by the accreditation agencies.

"I'm not going to start talking about going to sanction or withholding funds or those sorts of things until I have reason to believe that there's a lot of foot-dragging, and I don't think we see that at all yet," she said.