Assessing the threat of grade inflation
“Grades are going up. Workloads are going down. … Professors are giving A’s instead of B’s, and have largely given up on C’s, D’s and F’s altogether.” This claim, made by Stuart Rojstaczer, a retired Duke geophysics professor, reflects a widespread view about higher education.
But the concern is misleading. While the balance of data suggests that grades have indeed increased over the years, they have done so at a relatively modest pace. And although grade inflation has generated certain problems, there are few signs of a broader nationwide crisis, and there are few effects on the world outside of higher education. In short, the only thing inflated about grades is the debate over them.
A is the new B?
Traditional narratives about grade inflation portray an academy in the thrall of low standards. Harvey Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard, told the HPR that grade inflation is a “scandal.” Mansfield complained, “Most students at Harvard continue to get the same grades as high school—lots of A’s and few B’s.” As a result of declining standards, Mansfield claims, college students today put less effort into studying than did their predecessors. Mansfield concluded, “It’s so much easier to get a good grade than to actually study for it.”
At first glance, the data seem to justify these claims. Rojstaczer noted that the average college GPA rose from 2.93 in 1992 to 3.11 in 2007. Yet Clifford Adelman, a senior associate at the Institute of Higher Education, told the HPR that broader analyses show smaller effects. Adelman estimated a more conservative increase of .04 GPA points from 1972 to 1992, a statistically minuscule boost. While the studies cover different time frames, Adelman explained that his assessments—based on official student transcripts—also show little sign of a major inflationary trend since 1992.
What’s in a Grade?
The divergence between perceptions and data may well be owed to the definition of inflation. “For inflation to exist,” Adelman explained, “one has to assume that the students are given a fixed amount of work, and for doing this fixed amount of work, students are being graded more leniently.” A student receiving a higher grade for a greater amount of work, though, would not be the beneficiary of grade inflation.
Moreover, stories about rising grades may simplify a more complicated story. Harry Lewis, the former dean of Harvard College, told the HPR that grade inflation at Harvard isn’t a recent phenomenon at all; GPAs at the university have been increasing since 1920. It is difficult to blame today’s lazy students or lax professors for a 90-year-long phenomenon. At a minimum, Lewis cautioned, the long history of grade inflation should warn against a simple narrative of present-day decay.
Outside the Ivory Tower
Arguments over the existence and extent of grade inflation may prove to be a tempest in a teapot. For Lewis, the problem with higher education lies not in professors’ grading practices, but in the very instrument used to assess students: the GPA. “The GPA is a numerical soup of unreliable ingredients,” said Lewis. He criticized “the notion that you would average grades together from a completely different scale, and then rank students according to the third or fourth decimal place of the average.” Lewis concluded, “It’s easy to calculate, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a meaningful or accurate measure of anything else.”
Whether or not grades are systematically rising, employers show few signs of concern. As Sandra Hurse, vice president of global recruitment for Goldman Sachs, told the HPR, “We really look at things holistically. People have different situations in terms of why their GPA may be higher or lower than the next person.” Hurse concluded, “Our recruiters’ approach is to make an assessment based on each person as an individual.”
The Overinflated Debate
Why do some continue to portray grade inflation as a crisis in higher education? The answer may be that grade inflation gets attention—especially in the media—not because of the truth it illuminates, but because of the controversy it attracts. Grade inflation will remain a concern, then, not only so long as it actually exists, but as long as it provides a good story.
Alastair Su ’14 is a Contributing Writer.
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