“When college students perceive that the average grade in a class will be an A, they do not try to excel,” they write. More disturbing, they argue, are the potential effects on educational outcomes. The authors argue that grading standards may become even looser in the coming years, making it increasingly more difficult for graduate schools and employers to distinguish between excellent, good and mediocre students. They then attribute the rapid rise in grade inflation in the last couple of decades to a more “consumer-based approach” to education, which they say “has created both external and internal incentivesįor the faculty to grade more generously.” More generous grading can produce better instructor reviews, for example, and can help students be more competitive candidates for graduate schools and the job market. Rather, the researchers argue that grade inflation began picking in the 1960s and 1970s probably because professors were reluctant to give students D’s and F’s. Less time studying today than they did in the past. In fact, one recent study found that students spend significantly The authors don’t attribute steep grade inflation to higher-quality or harder-working students. What accounts for the higher G.P.A.’s over the last few decades? Southern schools have also been less generous with their grading than institutions in other geographic regions, and schools that focus on science and engineering tend to be stingier with their A’s than liberal Healy is a computer science professor at Furman University.) Rojstaczer is a former Duke geophysics professor, and Mr. Both types of institutions made their curves easier over time, but private schools madeīy the end of the last decade, A’s and B’s represented 73 percent of all grades awarded at public schools, and 86 percent of all grades awarded at private schools, according to the database compiled by Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy Note: 19 data represent averages from 1959–19–1981, respectively.Īs you can see, public and private school grading curves started out as relatively similar, and gradually pulled further apart.
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