Why and how does grade inflation in college happen?

Question

I have heard professors say that an A doesn't mean as much as it used to. Why are professors starting to give out more A's? How does the value of an A go down if many students just happen to fulfill everything listed in a given syllabus?? Who causes it?

Answer 1

Just to clarify/confirm: "Grade inflation" (the way your professor meant it) doesn't mean that student's don't still get "A"s for doing top-quality work. It means that students who do work that is "just OK" are also getting As, even though they didn't work as hard. Some schools/teachers simply give out A's too easily. When A's are easy to get, what incentive is there (aside from personal satisfaction) to go that "extra mile"?

Grade inflation is allegedly happening more often. Harvard and other Ivys are continually under fire for this sort of thing. Why does it happen? Well, grade inflation works in several directions: it makes the student look good, which makes the professor look good -- and both of these things, in turn, make the school look good.

"Looking good" in this way, can mean "big bucks" for a school and for the students/faculty. The truth is that -- even though schools are institutions of higher education and are usually not-for-profit -- they still operate like businesses to some extent. In order to keep the school running they need money. To get money, they need to attract wealthy donors and top-quality students. It wouldn't be very easy to attract either of these people if they found out that students were getting tons of "F"s, dropping out, etc. Keep in mind that graduation rates and attrition (i.e. drop-out/withdrawal) rates are all made public, so it wouldn't be long before everyone knew about the success rate (or lack thereof) of the school.

What student wouldn't want to be able to put on a resume, "Stanford, 4.0 GPA"?! Schools care about this sort of thing because, well, every happy (well-employed) alumnus is another potential donor... Schools take great pride in their students' successes, so it definitely comes in handy when Mr. Stanford 4.0 shows up in the news or lands a high-paying job.

Professors care about this sort of thing, too, because not only does the school's endowment have a direct affect on their salary, but that "Yale 4.0" student might also have an effect on his/her prestige.

This Wikipedia article alleges that the cause of grade inflation is more due to the various pressures placed upon the teacher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation I somewhat agree: I have heard some teachers tell stories about being approached by students who say "I need to get a B in this class or my employer won't subsidize my tuition." Of course, the professor still has the ultimate say, here -- making the student happy may not be reason enough to lower his/her standards...

It's worth mentioning that there is plenty of good data to support the notion that allegations of widespread grade inflation is a "myth." This article is a pretty interesting argument for this view: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm

Answer 2

If 50% of the students make As, then A simply means 'average or better'

A generation or two ago, this was the scale:
A - 'excellent'
B - 'above average'
C - 'average'
D - 'below average, but passing'
F - 'failed'

Now, it's more like
A - 'above average'
B - 'average'
C - 'below average, but passing'
D - 'failed'
F - 'failed badly'

Work that used to be a C is now worth a B. That's inflation.

In high schools, the problem with grade inflation is that colleges don't really know how strong a student is, if half the class all has A's. Which is why the SAT is becoming more important, as it's the only measure which isn't being inflated.

Answer 3

That is an opinion expressed by one professor. You could find others who say that A's are less common. The value cannot go down if the students fulfill the given requirements but remember that most term papers are subject to personal scrutiny.