People in the academe know that higher education is much more than test and essay results, but they often forget that basic truth. Over the past two decades they have placed the outcomes of higher education under scrutiny. Accrediting agencies make the assessment of learning a key to appraising institutions. Scholars make their voices heard on the matter, and politicians have grown curious about undergraduates. In the first decade of the new millennium, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings's Commission on the Future of Higher Education spent three years collecting data on the best way to measure the effect of a college education. Academics, accreditors, and government officials are all working to improve the performance of schools. Their efforts represent diverse perspectives, but the research pivots on cognitive psychology: the study of learning, knowledge acquisition, and skill development. Even authors in other fields gravitate toward cognitive psychology when they turn their attention to higher education. This scenario begs a question. Is cognitive psychology the most appropriate tool to employ in the study of education? The discipline of psychology offers a valuable perspective, but postsecondary life is more than a psychological enterprise. Anthropologists suggest that culture influences behavior. Traditions work on thoughts and they determine tendencies. Customs affect the choices one makes--the foods one eat, the clothes one wear, and the cars one drive. No doubt one's culture shaped one's interest in the cognitive outcomes of education.