Earlier this fall, Harvard University released a report from its Classroom Social Compact Committee. Among other things, it noted that rampant grade inflation allowed students to regularly skip classes. (The fact that the school, astonishingly, allows students to register for more than one class that meets at the same time probably is not helping.)
Moreover, the ones who are putting in the work and showing up are more stressed than ever, trying to figure out how they can distinguish themselves in the classroom. Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education, told The New York Times that in the past 10 years the percentage of grades that were A’s increased to 60% from 40%.
This is not a new problem. It’s been almost a half century since Harvey Mansfield famously started giving his Harvard students two different grades — a real one that measured their actual achievement and an inflated one they could put on their transcript so they didn’t get punished for taking a class with rigorous standards.
As much as grade inflation is a problem at elite schools, though, it presents even more significant challenges for universities lower down on the higher ed totem pole. A conversation with a recently retired math professor I have known for decades got me to thinking.
As a second career, “Don” started teaching introductory math classes at a large state university and a small private college about 15 years ago. Because math knowledge can be measured objectively, there were some universal standards imposed across the department. The average grade when he began was C, with about 10% receiving A’s and 20% getting B’s. Don noted that about 20% failed or did poorly enough that they needed to repeat the course.
As of last year, he tells me, the class average had not only moved up from C to B, “but we were giving closer to a third A and A- grades and another 40% B+, B and B- grades, and about 10% failed or did so poorly that they would need to retake the course.”
The change was not because the students were more prepared. In fact, the opposite may have been true, what with falling test scores among elementary and secondary students. Don describes the current student enrollment as evenly split into three groups: those who were repeating a class — say, calculus — that they took in high school and would do fine, and those who were “adequately prepared” and with some work would be fine. The final third, he said, “were unprepared (often woefully so) and had essentially no chance of passing the course, unless they put in a lot of effort.”
Don noted that “often students in the last group were also working part-time (or even full-time) and were struggling in their other courses, so they had very little prospect of passing.”
How had they come to this point without anyone telling them to take something at a lower level? He told me that occasionally a student would come in to chat after a particularly low grade on a midterm. They were often surprised, having received B’s in math all through high school. There were a lot of resources to help them — tutoring, online videos, etc. — but they often didn’t have the time or the background needed to get through these courses successfully.
It is a scandal that these kids who are trying to hold down full-time jobs while going to class — maybe even supporting a family — in order to get a college degree are instead being sold a bill of goods. First, their high schools tell them they can do college-level work, then college admissions officers tell them they are qualified to enter classes without any kind of remedial work, then the college teachers, at the behest of administrators, tell them they have successfully completed the class and can either go on to a higher level and/or tell their employers that they are competent in the subject.
It is a kind of pyramid scheme in which no one wants to be the one to back away or the whole system will topple. If any one person blew the whistle and refused to give kids grades they did not deserve, refused to say that they understand material they clearly do not, then the whole system would be exposed. Each of the players is under an extraordinary amount of pressure — to keep their jobs, to not bring shame upon their own institutions or their colleagues — that everyone just goes along.
And then there is the pressure to be compassionate. Who wants to tell a student they have been lied to for years and that the buck stops here?
The real compassion, though, lies in telling our young people the truth.