Grade inflation at colleges: good thing? or bad?

There are essentially 2 different schools of thought of what grades should represent.

Some believe that grades should primarily reflect a certain level of understanding/mastering the material. If a college class is full of top students, then a larger portion of students are expect to reach the threshold of understanding/mastering the material for an A, so a larger portion of the class should receive an A, and average GPA is expected to be higher at more selective colleges than less selective colleges.

Some believe that grades should primarily serve as a means of distinguishing students from one another. If Harvard or similar gives the vast majority of students receive A’s in a particular class, grades to not serve this purpose well. There is no separation of the good students vs the best students.

I think of grade inflation as something else. Grade inflation is more of grades increasing over time without a comparable change in class performance (for first school of thought above). It’s possible for a college with a 3.0 average GPA to have extreme grade inflation, and it is possible for a college with a 3.7 average GPA to have no grade inflation.

Most colleges do have increasing average GPA over time. At many colleges, the rate appears to be on the order of 0.1/4.0 per decade. These same colleges also have generally become more selective over time, admitting a higher quality of students from one decade to the next, but the difference in student body is usually not enough to fully explain the degree of GPA increase. I do think that external pressures for grad school and employers can contribute. Higher GPAs generally lead to better average outcomes of grads and more content students.

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Grades are more than just for distinguishing among students. They help motivate students to learn subjects more thoroughly and in greater depth. If nearly everyone can get an A easily, human nature is such that many of them will just do enough to get their As. They won’t strive to be the best they can be. Ultimately, this is a great loss, not only to them, but also to the subjects they’re studying and to the society as whole.

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I disagree. An over emphasis on grades impedes true learning, encourages cheating and puts the emphasis on performance over intellectual inquiry. Many kids avoid challenging material because they are focused on getting As.

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Your points are well-reasoned.

“Higher GPAs generally lead to better average outcomes of grads and more content students.” Yes, at the microscopic level. But don’t you think there is a serious flaw at the macroscopic level?

A pass fail system would be easier to understand than the traditional letter grades in which no one receives the lowest 3 letters.

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I don’t know if you read the CC college Covid thread where posters provided links to Harvard and Yale campus newspaper surveys that indicate about a quarter of the students surveyed admitted they cheated on exams during the pandemic. Lenient grading doesn’t seem to prevent cheating.

That’s another (but related) problem because these schools have also gradually (but consistently) lowered their minimum curriculum requirements. They also offer too many unchallenging courses and/or majors.

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I saw the cheating links - sadly, not surprising. It’s everywhere, I think. When I was growing up the kids who cheated were struggling academically - today, it’s often top performing kids who are afraid of having their gpa drop. Unfortunately, the internet has brought cheating to a whole new level with people selling their services - doing your homework, writing your papers etc.

Any particular examples, presuming you mean general education requirements that all undergraduate need to complete to graduate?

Perhaps the most obvious example of lesser general education requirements is Brown, but it adopted its open curriculum in 1969, so it is not exactly a recent event that it reduced general education requirements.

Here’s a study which comes to a similar conclusion:

“ A recent study conducted at the Naval Academy showed that students learn less from easy teachers*.* As the researchers state, “Instructors who tend to give out easier subjective grades… dramatically hurt subsequent student performance.” While a generalization, these claims support the intuitions of anyone who has ever been to school or met a human. When students can give less effort, they do.”

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I agree with this view.

That being said, I just wanted to point out the two articles that I cited in the OP actually say grade inflation HELPS students. I’m puzzled about that and think that goes against any intuition.

What would help is to cut out all this grade inflation altogether and just go P/F or, as another poster mentioned during their time at HBS, 1, 2, and 3. That takes away competition but has deterrents and rewards at either end.

Calculating a GPA to the second place to the right of the decimal is a bit of a joke if there is so much inflation going on. It gives a really false sense of achievement, IMHO, in the veneer of a seemingly objective standard.

Not just general education requirements but also major requirements as well. On the general education requirement, here’s an example of the most recent change at Harvard (this isn’t meant to single out Harvard, however):

It depends on many factors. For example, Duke did a study evaluating what criteria predicts switching from an engineering/physics/econ majors to a less quantitative field. One of the strongest evaluated predictors of switching out of the major was the harshness of grading of particular Duke classes. This harshness of grading was a stronger predictor than HSGPA/SAT stats of the student, after controls. Several other studies have come to similar conclusions. Rather than inspiring them to learn the material in greater depth, it contributed to them switching to a different major and avoiding the field altogether. However, I agree that there also students who will work harder when they don’t have an A average and learn the material in greater depth.

I also don’t think it is a given that everyone at Harvard can get an A easily. The Q guide suggests many classes have noteworthy workload, and students often self select to classes where they can achieve A grades. For example, Harvard’s math 55 is almost legendary in its degree of rigor. While the vast majority of students who complete the course probably do get an A, most students who start the course do not complete it, and most students on campus would not attempt it with good reason.

If you look at the intro math classes that less well qualified Harvard students are more likely to take, I expect you’ll find a very different grade distribution than math 55 or major-specific high level classes that more resembles not super selective colleges. For example, in the other thread I looked up some self-reported grade distributions for Stanford classes, which have a similar self-reported cumulative GPA to Harvard’s senior survey (3.75 in Stanford’s 2020 senior survey). A specific example is below. Some students did clearly receive the lowest 3 letters.

Math 19 (freshmen math) – 33% A+/A/A-, 43% B+/B/B-, 12% C+/C/C-, 7% D/F/NC, 6% CR

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I’m certainly not saying students are going to get easy As in every course. They just have the option to get easy As. If the school provides such an option, many will take it. Of course, these are not the students who choose to take Math 55 at Harvard. They are self-motivated and among the best math students, not the students we’re discussing here.

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A few colleges have had similar thoughts. . For example, several years ago Princeton tried to switch from the traditional first school of thought on grading I mentioned to the second school of thought. They tried to limit A grades to a max of 35% of the class, with little consideration to portion of students that have understood/mastered the material.

The new policy did not go well with most students or really most of any reviewed group and was soon abandoned. Many/most professors didn’t follow the grading recommendations. Some example quotes from the post-mortem report are below. Princeton also issued a statement on transcripts to explain to employers or others reading the transcript that the lower grading should not be a reflection on the student (or something to that effect). However, I doubt that all employers and grad/professional schools paid attention to the statement.

I have experience multiple negative effects from the grading policy. Because of grade deflation it has been extremely hard to find any kind of collaborative environment in any department and class I have taken at Princeton. Often even good friends of mine would refuse to explain simple concepts that I might have not understood in class for fear that I would do better than them. I have also heard from others about students actively sabotaging other student’s grades by giving them the wrong notes or telling them wrong information

On the first day of classes, my teacher said that only 3 of us in a class of 11 would receive As. This often means that despite receiving an overall grade of 90+ a student cannot receive an A-grade because some other student got a 91 or 92.

I earned a college scholarship at the end of high school. To keep the scholarship, I had to maintain a 3.4 GPA throughout college. I did not have a 3.4 my first semester due to grade deflation in large introduction classes and lost my scholarship.

First of all, Princeton didn’t have grade deflation (no college does). It tried to slow grade inflation. Like all types of inflation, grade inflation can’t be easily controlled once it has started, especially locally at one school. Also like price inflation, there’s a psychological aspect. Inflation is the result of, and is accelerated by, a psychological expectation. If students are used to grade inflation, any reversal (or even slowdown) will upset some students.

I didn’t say Princeton had grade deflation. However, one of the Princeton students I quoted did. That said, Princeton’s average GPA and grade distribution did decrease during the start of the modified grading period. It was not just a reduced rate of increase. Some specific numbers are below:

2002 – 3.38 (standard grading policy) – 45% A, 39% B, ~8% C or lower, 8% P,
2007 – 3.27 (35% A policy in effect) – 40% A, 47% B, ~12% C or lower, 1% P
2012 – 3.29 (35% A policy in effect) – 42% A, 46% B, ~10% C or lower, 2% P
2017 – 3.43 (standard grading policy) – 52% A, 36% B, ~9% C or lower, 3% P
2019 – 3.46 (standard grading policy) – 55% A, 35% B, ~6% C or lower, 4% P
2020 – 3.52 (influence from COVID) – 56% A, 28% B, ~5% C or lower, 11% P

I would say that was a period where grades were relatively stable. It was hard for any college to calibrate a new grading policy well enough to exactly replicate the same grades under the previous policy.

That’s the point I just made. AOs meaning the admissions officers at Harvard.

I know you meant AOs at Harvard (or similar colleges). But if Exeter/Andover, etc. can assume these AOs have a good understanding of their programs, why couldn’t Harvard do likewise and assume employers/grad schools have a good understanding of its program?

I think it’s almost all super weird. I also think that for the most part GPA is useless and I’ve never given anyone mine, with the exception of putting it on my grad school admission, I think. Nobody has asked, either.

The other thing is it varies by school… The first 2-3 years of my undergrad, they didn’t give +'s or -'s. So you got a 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4. I cannot tell you how many times I got a 89 and got a 3. Or a 79 and got a 2. Very rarely was it like I got a 80 and got a 3. I’m pretty sure if my GPA would have been calculated the way it is at most other schools it would have been .2 or so higher. By the time I got to senior year, they changed it and were doing 0, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 and 4 and i think it was the 5 percent mark that decided if you got the extra .5.

I do think there is grade inflation in grad school. I’ve gotten almost 100 on every single class… and I’m really not that smart.

I do hope that when they changed the system in your senior year, you were able to get a lift in your GPA.

And by saying you’re not smart is the mark of a very wise person, indeed!