Spellings' plan, which came in response to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education's final report, called for the strengthening of K-12 preparation, the creation of a national database to track students, an increase in funds for need-based Pell Grants and the streamlining of the application process for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Currently, the Department of Education keeps records on the number of students moving through a particular college, but the proposed "unit records" database would keep information on individual students to see how they progressed throughout the course of their educational career.
The idea of creating national unit records to track student performance has drawn criticism in the past from civil libertarians, private colleges and conservatives in Congress who see the creation of such a system as a threat to privacy rights.
HR 609, which the House of Representatives passed in March, specifically bars the agency from developing such a system.
However, Spellings sought to appease critics by emphasizing that student data will not be tied to personal information like Social Security numbers and that the database will be "privacy protected."
"It wouldn't enable you to go online and find out how Margaret Spellings did in her political science class," Spellings said in her remarks.
Furthermore, the program would be voluntary at first, providing incentives in the form of matching funds for states and institutions that collect and report their students' information.
Citing several recent studies which point to diminishing student performance at the university level, the Spellings Commission report criticized the current system's inability to track whether or not students are actually learning.
To address this issue, the report called on public universities to administer standardized tests like the Collegiate Learning Assessment or the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress to measure student learning.
In her speech, Spellings stressed the need for comprehensive and comparative data so that the public can hold institutions accountable for performance.
President of the American Council on Education David Ward, the only commission member who refused to sign the final report, objected to the panel's excessive reliance on "quick solutions."
"The recommendations as a whole also fail to recognize the diversity of missions within higher education and the need to be cautious about policies and standards based on a one-size-fits-all approach," Ward said in an official statement.
Although the commission recommended raising the purchasing power of the typical Pell Grant to cover 70 percent of the average in-state tuition at public four-year colleges over the next five years, Spellings stopped short of endorsing a specific dollar increase.
Spellings' plan also highlighted the need to simplify the financial aid application process by partnering with states to use existing income and tax data to help students complete the FAFSA more quickly and notify them of their eligibility before spring of their senior year.
The commission also called for continuing efforts to bolster K-12 education by increasing access to Advanced Placement classes and better preparing students for college-level work.
Dartmouth administrators declined to comment on Spellings' plan.
