Few people seriously regard students as "products" coming off an educational assembly line, but notions about accountability and quality improvement in higher education are pervaded by manufacturing ideas and metaphors. Because numerical indicators of quality are inevitably expressed by trend lines or statistical control chars of some kind, they are governed by statistical principles of quality control. The principles are fairly simple, but campus groups convened to establish numerical accountability goals and objectives are often unaware of them. This paper provides some examples of accountability malpractice and some guidelines for expressing accountability indicators better. The indicators discussed in detail are: (1) 1-year continuation rates; (2) 6-year graduation rates; (3) percentage of students expressing satisfaction with aspects of their education on a survey; (4) upper division units taken by students who entered the institution as community college transfers, compared to those taken by students who entered the institution as freshmen; and (5) percent of freshmen proficient in mathematics. (Contains 3 figures and 15 references.) (Author/SLD)