Grade inflation scrutinized at Harvard and elsewhere

The dean of arts and sciences at Harvard University has asked faculty members in all undergraduate departments to review their grading practices and develop common standards and definitions after an internal study showed that about 50 percent of undergraduate grades were A's or A minuses in 2001, up from about 35 percent in 1986. Average grades were highest in smaller courses and in humanities courses. Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Susan Pedersen sent the data to Harvard faculty, along with a letter saying that the institution's Educational Policy Committee had come to believe that "grade inflation is a serious problem in the [arts and sciences], and that steps should be taken to combat it." The commitee is made up of faculty and administrators.

Although Harvard has been a center of attention over grade inflation recently, its situation is not unique. Last fall, reporter Patrick Healy provoked a national debate about grading when he revealed in a series of Boston Globe articles that 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with honors in June 2001. Many observers believe that grade inflation is widespread at institutions across higher education, and they trace its origins to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when professors may have been lenient on male students whose student status was a protection against the draft. Others tie grade inflation to an increasing tendency of universities to regard students as consumers of a product, who expect to get their money's worth and whose evaluations of professors can play an important role in tenure and promotion-or, for tenuously employed adjuncts, in job retention. A report recently issued by a committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences reviews the evidence and concludes that, whatever the causes, "The fact that grade inflation has existed between the late 1960s and the present is beyond dispute."

The problem with grade inflation, observers say, is that it makes it difficult for graduate schools, employers, and students themselves to distinguish good work from outstanding work. Because most institutions use a grading scale that is capped at 4.0, the grades of outstanding students already at the A level cannot rise, while the grades of mediocre students can, resulting in grade compression. And students at institutions that do not inflate grades may find themselves at a disadvantage when applying to graduate programs or for jobs. The Washington University School of Law announced in January that it will deliberately inflate its standard grading scale in order to keep its graduates competitive with those of peer institutions.

Despite concerns about grade inflation, not everyone believes that it is as widespread or as dramatic as some suggest. A research report issued by the U.S. Department of Education in 1995 concluded that average U.S. college grades had actually declined between 1972 and 1993. And some argue that increased competition for admission to elite institutions over the past few decades may have led to higher-quality students being admitted to universities like Harvard.