"College education is a costly proposition with tuition, room and board at some colleges topping $50,000 a year. Is it worth it? Increasing evidence suggests that it's not." This is the opening line of a recent article written by economist Walter Williams.
Dr. Williams goes on to make the point that "grade inflation" is destroying the value of higher education. What is grade inflation? How does it affect you and me? Should we be concerned?
Normally you think of inflation in terms of dollars. Rising prices lead to a decrease in purchasing power. Rising prices alone are not cause for concern, but if other factors are not increasing also, that is when the devaluation occurs. For example, an increase in prices that increases at the same rate as gross domestic product - a measure of a country's overall economy - will net no change in purchasing power. But, if prices increase faster than GDP, that is what economists call inflation; in other words your dollars are worth less.
Academic grade inflation works the same way. If the average undergraduate grade point average of a school is increasing like it is across the nation, but the students' standardized test performance is not increasing - it is decreasing significantly - there is inflation, or devaluation, taking place.
Until recently, evidence of grade inflation was hard to come by. However, articles that appeared in the Boston Globe and other publications brought the issue to light. The articles attacked Ivy League schools, essentially claiming that their degrees had become homogenous, meaning it was impossible to differentiate the truly exceptional students from the average ones by using GPA.
For instance, 91 percent of students at Harvard University were awarded honors in 2001, 50 percent of the students at Columbia University were on the dean's list and, until recently, Stanford University professors were prohibited from failing students and 94 percent of students earned grades better than a C.
Perhaps the majority of students who attend Ivy League schools are exceptional people who earn those grades. That is plausible, but what about the other schools? Do state schools that have an open arms policy for accepting students suffer from grade inflation?
One fine example is the University of Alabama. The "Alabama Observer" reported several departments awarded more than 50 percent A's in introductory courses, and that one department, Women's Studies, handed out 90 percent A's. I'm no expert, but I've always been told that a C is the average. It's clear from these numbers that the average grades are at least in the B range.
From my own experiences at Ball State University, I'm sure there is grade inflation. I've sat through many core classes where, in my opinion, to fail would take a deliberative effort. Showing up only on test day could easily yield a passing grade, especially with the curves nearly every professor resorts to. I've been in classes that had 30 percent curves or more on tests.
The big issue is not whether grade inflation exists - it does - but why it exists. I believe there are two prime reasons for it. One, professors' salary raises are determined partly by student evaluations. In 2003, Valen Johnson published a paper showing a statistical correlation between high grades and high course evaluations, and the opposite. Professors are presumably rational; they will want to maximize their earnings, and handing out A's like candy is a surefire way to ensure a pay raise.
The second reason is more subjective; I think professors are afraid to hurt their students' feelings. Our generation has grown up with everyone tiptoeing around each other's feelings. Grade privacy has become a law. The average grade has always been about a B+ throughout our entire school years. To us, a C is not average, it is failing. To most of us, we couldn't handle being average, because we know we're not. We're all special, and our grades reflect that.
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