Is Grade Inflation a Myth?

At many elite schools, A's - including A-minuses -- make up about half the grades. At Harvard, eight out of ten students graduate with honors.

Statistics like these have led to allegations of rampant grade inflation, particularly at highly selective research universities and liberal arts colleges. Some critics have concluded that educational standards have grown lax, that academic rigor has eroded, and that today's professors demand too little from their students, making it difficult to distinguish the very best students from the merely good. Some critics also charge that faculty members award higher grades in exchange for better student evaluations. Others claim that grade inflation reflects the increasing reliance on time stressed adjunct faculty and Teaching Assistants, who lack the time (or training) to grade carefully.

Those who claim that grade inflation is a myth respond by arguing that the evidence that grades are rising is ambiguous; that the trend in grades has not been exclusively in an upward direction; and that insofar as grades are rising, this reflect better prepared students.

Concern that grading standards are declining is not new. In 1894, Harvard issued a Report on Raising the Standard that concluded:

Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily -- Grade A for work of not very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity . . . One of the chief obstacles to raising the standards of the degree is the readiness with which insincere students gain passable grades by sham work.

What are the facts?

• A substantial portion of undergraduates - about a third - have a grade point average of C or less.
  
• Grades have risen, but the increase has been less than many have charged.
  
• The sharpest increase in grades has occurred at the most elite private schools and coincides with intensifying competition to for admission to those institutions.
  
• The upward trend in grading obscures sharp disparities in grading among schools and disciplines and within departments. In general, there has been less inflation in grades at public universities and in science and math courses.

The most marked recent development is a sharp increase in the number of students withdrawing from or repeating classes in hopes of raising their GPA.
A recent study of grades at 29 well-known colleges and universities disclosed that Grade Point Averages at private institutions rose by 0.6 on a 4.0 scale between 1967 and 2001. The GPA rose between 25 and 30 percent higher at the private colleges and universities compared to their public counterparts. A study of a wider range of institutions, which examined 80 colleges and universities, found a smaller rate of growth, of 0.15 per decade.

For information on grading trends, see: Clifford Adelman, "Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary Education, 1972-2000," Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, 2004; Stuart Rojstaczer, http://gradeinflation.com/; Catherine E. Shoichet, "Reports of Grade Inflation May be Inflated, Study Finds," Chronicle of Higher Education, July 12, 2002), http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i44/44a03701.htm; and George D. Kuh and Shouping Hu, "Unraveling the Complexity of the Increase in College Grades From the Mid-1980s to the Mid-1990s," Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol 21, No. 3, Fall 1999, http://www.jstor.org/view/01623737/ap040089/04a00030/0.