A new government-sponsored report on American higher education has met with sharp criticism from Harvard professors.

The report, entitled "Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of American Higher Education," cited a decline in the quality of education received by college graduates and made 27 recommendations to remedy the situation.

While most professors interviewed agreed with the problems identified by the report, which was commissioned in 1983 by the National Institute of Education, they rejected its proposed solutions.

The panel called on universities and colleges to establish minimum standards and to test students in both their fields of concentration and in general knowledge.

A Diploma."

"Schools should spend more time on what [students] should get out of college instead of how to get in," said Kenneth P. Mortimer, chairman of the panel and a professor of higher education and public administration at Pennsylvania State University.

But experts her questioned the necessity and feasibility of such a program.

The report cited several signs it concluded indicate a decline in the quality of higher education, including a decrease in scores in 10 of 14 major subject areas in the Graduate Record Examination from 1964 to 1982.

"The strains of rapid expansion, followed by recent years of constricting resources and leveling enrollments, have taken their toll," the report stated.

The report also decrled the increasing pre-professionalism in the nation's colleges and universities. According to the panel, the percentage of bachelor's degrees granted in the arts and sciences, as opposed to those from professional, preprofessional and vocational programs, fell from 49 percent in 1971 to 36 percent in 1982.

Among the panel's other recommendations:

* increasing emphasis on leaching and advising college freshmen and sophomores.

* establishing a minimum of two years of liberal arts courses for all students.

* de-emphasizing vocational courses and

* decreasing the number of part-time professors.