zohaibahd

Getting out of hand: Grade inflation in American universities is a real problem, but hardly anything has been done to address it. The statistics are staggering. The average GPA at elite schools like Harvard has skyrocketed from 2.6 in 1950 to 3.8 today. In 2023, a mindblowing 80 percent of all grades at Yale were either A or A-.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed by German-American political scientist and author Yascha Mounk argues the core issue is that universities increasingly view students as "prized customers," thanks to forever-rising tuition costs. So they cater to their demands and lifestyles. Giving out a bunch of As is an easy way to satisfy the clientele.

Additionally, Mounk suggests some professors have grown uncomfortable wielding authority over students as evaluators. He points out that a culture of "politeness" and a "greater fear of giving offense" in the US discourages giving critical feedback. This dynamic is quite different from that of England, where Mounk taught. He says teachers there were encouraged to present student assessments as a "poisoned Oreo cookie" where criticism is still a thing, except smartly sandwiched between layers of chocolate (praise).

Mounk contends that the American way of doing things has rendered the whole grading system meaningless. Everyone scores an A, and students can no longer gauge their actual performance.

"The current grading system favors mediocre kids from stable homes over talented ones from less stable backgrounds," he added.

Employers can't pick suitable candidates either, possibly exacerbating the talent shortage in tech. Additionally, nearly 60 percent of young applicants now use generative AI for job applications. It's a recipe for disaster.

As a possible solution, Mounk gives the example of Harvard's recently retired professor Harvey Mansfield, who fought back by giving students their "real" and "ironic" grades – the former based on stringent standards, the latter contorted to university norms. However, workarounds like this are insufficient band-aids. The straightforward solution would be restoring meaningful standards – grading on a strict curve, capping high grades, or adopting more granular scoring systems.

This philosophy aligns with another op-ed from last year by Tim Donahue of The New York Times, requesting professors use the B- for college essays more often as it pushes the student to make the necessary corrections and realize the essay's true potential rather than giving it an "early, convenient death." However, Mounk points out that universities adopting unpopular reforms would risk tanking in the rankings.

His radical proposal is that since the grading system has become an irreparable "charade," universities should just abolish grades altogether in favor of pass/fail scoring. Some elite grad schools have already made this change. Mounk concludes that entirely tossing out grades could be the "least bad option" until a brighter day when academia finds the will to start fresh with honest evaluations.

Image credit: Caroline Culler

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Is it time to abolish college grades entirely? Why American universities are handing out too many A's

seeprime

I have a niece who teaches at four universities in Colorado. Her biggest complaint is that students today, hopefully not tomorrow, are entitled brats. She is pressured to give better grades, but refuses to. If a student doesn't earn an A they wont get one. She's sought after by more universities due to her style of teaching instead of coddling. There is still hope for the future.

Theinsanegamer · 2024-09-08T17:35:39-0400

The solution to "grade inflation" is not to remove grades. It is to start grading ACCURATELY, not based on a student's race, background, "socio economic factors" or state interests, but on the work that student performs. Have we learned nothing from the removal of grades from elementary, then middle, and now high schools? All it does is pass the buck of inevitable failure for bad students further into their lives, and leave less time to correct issues.

School should be tough, but fair. Students should be given the same opportunity, and help if they are falling behind. By appealing to the lowest common denominator, schools have successfully undermined their very purpose and sabotaged entire generations of students to cater to the slowest. Meanwhile, the private schools that challenge students and do not cater show far better results then public education can muster.

Still, watching colleges remove all ability to judge if their students are actually capable of anything is well within what I expect from them these days, and will only further make college a worthless institution. After all, it was the colleges themselves that taught multiple generations of teachers to think any failing of a student was the system's fault, and the teachers that still couldnt hack it became the educational department politicians passing these insane rules for how schools cant fail kids. It's a rotten system that rewards incompetence that has needed remedied for decades.

BuckarooBonzaii

Perhaps inflated grades at big colleges or ivy leagues are a result of big donations they get too. Grading pushes you to learn and face challenges. Could it be that too much democracy is ruining this Country? As seen by the Bilderberg Group.

toooooot

Theinsanegamer said:
The solution to "grade inflation" is not to remove grades. It is to start grading ACCURATELY, not based on a student's race, background, "socio economic factors" or state interests, but on the work that student performs. Have we learned nothing from the removal of grades from elementary, then middle, and now high schools? All it does is pass the buck of inevitable failure for bad students further into their lives, and leave less time to correct issues.

School should be tough, but fair. Students should be given the same opportunity, and help if they are falling behind. By appealing to the lowest common denominator, schools have successfully undermined their very purpose and sabotaged entire generations of students to cater to the slowest. Meanwhile, the private schools that challenge students and do not cater show far better results then public education can muster.

Still, watching colleges remove all ability to judge if their students are actually capable of anything is well within what I expect from them these days, and will only further make college a worthless institution. After all, it was the colleges themselves that taught multiple generations of teachers to think any failing of a student was the system's fault, and the teachers that still couldnt hack it became the educational department politicians passing these insane rules for how schools cant fail kids. It's a rotten system that rewards incompetence that has needed remedied for decades.

Giving fair grades means that one specific group will or already have noticeably higher failure rate.
And in our society, where almost everything negative is interpreted as injustice when it is done to several specific groups, a lot of teachers might be tempted to give better grades out of fear of being called racists.
The right way is focusing on kids of the lower achieving groups. Few people would be against funding school for the groups that can barely finish school and completely fail college.
But we can't because the reason was already found, evil people who set their life goal to make sure these specific groups underachieve. It is a lie that too many are willing to take rather than doing something that requires effort.
It makes me even more bitter when the teachers of the worst schools for the mentioned groups speak of everything except why they still have their jobs.

Subset6

If you have not realized by now that "higher education" is just a racket I don't know what to tell you.

NotYourITguy

Perhaps the real issue is that people in society place far too much faith on meaningless and very arbitrary measures of alleged achievement. College grades are ultimately meaningless. It does not matter if you graduated with perfect grades or mediocre scores in terms of how competent you are at your job. Something something the old adage about judging a fish by how well it can climb trees.

Some of the brightest people I've met never were academically gifted according to their transcripts, yet anybody who ever spoke with them could tell they were clearly gifted in their craft. One of them now runs their own semiconductor design firm and "allegedly" signed a licensing deal for their IP to a GPU company.

Dr Roboto

As someone that has been both part of higher education and in a position to hire college graduates, I do not put a lot of emphasis on grades (GPA). I always look for the people with the extra things like research projects and additional work that sets them apart. Getting good grades does not always translate well to being a productive employee. Anyone trying to get the best possible job with just a GPA is going to struggle.

As for grade inflation, many institutions use student evaluations of faculty as a component in decisions related to tenure, promotions, and pay raises. This creates pressure on instructors to give higher grades to avoid negative evaluations from students (this teacher is too hard). As universities compete to attract students, some have been accused of inflating grades to make their institution more appealing by showing better student outcomes (We are the best, just look at our average GPA). Additionally, there has been less emphasis on penalizing students for poor performance and a greater focus on encouraging success (everyone gets a trophy).

brucek

The average GPA at elite schools like Harvard has skyrocketed from 2.6 in 1950 to 3.8 today. In 2023, a mindblowing 80 percent of all grades at Yale were either A or A-.

These students are not a random sample of the population. They are at Harvard and Yale precisely because their high school record reflected a near top 1% ability to master every course thrown at them. It should not be a surprise that most of them continued to do so throughout their college career (and beyond.)

To me, an "A" grade should have the objective meaning of the material was thoroughly understood and can be applied with finesse. As a recruiter or evaluator it would not do me any favors to give someone who had that knowledge and ability a "C" merely because that same class also included future Einsteins and Hawkings. That's what letters of recommendation are for where that level of distinction is truly required.

In any event I suppose any questions could be put to rest just by including the grade distribution curve for each course on the transcript, along with hopefully a standardized explanation of what grading system was used.

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