(From MindingtheCampus.com):
By Thomas K. Lindsay
A recent Harvard Crimson piece has raised eyebrows. From “Substantiating Fears of Grade Inflation, Dean Says Median Grade at Harvard College Is A-,” we learn that the estimable Harvard has done for grades what the Weimar Republic did for the mark. At Harvard, we read, the “most common grade is A .” But anyone surprised at Harvard’s hyperinflation hasn’t been paying much attention, and anyone who thinks Harvard should be singled out for this has been paying even less. Higher education nationally has for decades been slouching toward Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon –“where all the children are above average.”
While Harvard’s undergraduates enjoy higher grade point averages than others, the truth is that A’s are now the most common college grade everywhere.Professors Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy’s study of the last fifty years of college grades finds that, in 1960, 15 percent of all college grades were A’s, which were outnumbered by D’s and F’s combined. The most common grade was a C. Today, an A is the most common grade given nationally (43 percent); A’s and B’s together now account for 73 percent of all college grades at public universities and 86 percent of all private school grades. READ MORE HERE