What Can Be Done About Grade Inflation
I have blogged before about the problem of grade inflation in colleges and universities and how it creates a distorted view about the academic achievement of students. How is an employer to know which one of two candidates is better than the other if one deserves an “honest” ‘A’ grade while another student receives the same grade, even though they didn’t deserve it, because of grade inflation. Some employers have started to raise this issue because they perceive that grade inflation is occurring.
Why Grade Inflation is Occurring
I have noticed that grade inflation is increasingly occurring based on my 40+ years of teaching. Here are my thoughts about the causes of grade inflation:
• Students have come to expect that their final course grades will be raised because previous teachers have done the same and students are expecting this outcome.
• Students tend to feel free to debate grades when they disagree with the instructor because they feel entitled to do so.
• Students feel the pressure from employers to achieve the highest grade possible to be competitive with other students.
• Student evaluation of teachers’ performance is a factor in faculty evaluation so faculty [wrongfully] come to believe they need to grade high to receive good evaluations.
• Faculty choose not to debate grades with students. It can be exhausting.
I was interested in what AI would say about why there is grade inflation. Here is what it said:
• Empathy for Students
Professors may feel reluctant to penalize struggling students, leading to higher grades as a form of support. This empathy is often influenced by a growing awareness of mental health issues among students, prompting educators to adopt a more lenient grading approach.
• Concerns About Evaluations
Faculty members may fear that tougher grading could negatively impact their evaluations, which are often tied to job security and career advancement. This creates an incentive to maintain higher grades to avoid unfavorable assessments from students and administrators.
• Peer Pressure and Competition
At prestigious institutions like Harvard, there is pressure among faculty to avoid being perceived as tougher than their peers, which can discourage student enrollment in their courses. This competitive environment can lead to a culture of grade inflation as faculty aim to attract more students.
• National Trends
Grade inflation is recognized as a broader issue across educational institutions, intensifying over decades. This trend reflects systemic changes in educational practices and expectations, contributing to the overall increase in high grades awarded.
Clearly, there is overlap with my opinion. The question then becomes, what, if anything, can be done to mitigate the effects of grade inflation. The answer may be to use the SAT exam to level the playing field and provide an objective measure of achievement.
Is using SAT Scores the Answer to the Problem? The Views of Robert Kaplan
Robert Kaplan is a senior scholar at the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Clinical Excellence Research Center. He says that “The debate has been framed as a choice between fairness and academic excellence. Supporters argue that standardized tests predict college success and provide an objective measure of academic ability. Opponents counter that test scores disadvantage students from historically underrepresented and lower-income backgrounds. Both sides make valid points. But they are arguing about the wrong problem.”
Kaplan provides a useful insight into the problem and why it occurs. He says: “Universities keep returning to the SAT because nearly every other component of the admissions process has become less informative. Admissions committees face an increasingly difficult task.” I totally agree!
According to Kaplan, recommendation letters are not reliable because they rarely mention weaknesses, forcing admissions officers to search for subtle clues that distinguish one exceptional-appearing applicant from another. Artificial intelligence can produce polished prose in seconds, while teachers, counselors and private consultants often help applicants revise essays repeatedly before submission, and so do parents. The result is an applicant pool in which almost everyone appears extraordinary
Grade inflation in college has become more pronounced. During the 2024–25 academic year, 84% of grades issued at Harvard were ‘A’ or ‘A-,’ compared with 24% in 2005. Similar trends have been reported for most elite campuses, including UC Berkeley. When nearly everyone receives the highest grades, those grades lose much of their meaning.
So, what’s the conclusion? Standardized tests remain among the few measures that consistently distinguish applicants, giving the SAT more influence than its predictive value alone would warrant. Supporters argue that the SAT is unbiased because it predicts college performance similarly across racial and ethnic groups. But that misses a larger issue.
Kaplan says that: “Average SAT scores differ substantially across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups, reflecting unequal educational opportunities, family income, parental education and other advantages. As a result, increasing the weight of standardized tests inevitably changes who is admitted.”
Depending on the weight given to SAT scores, it could impede establishing a diverse student body. An admissions system that increasingly favors students with the greatest educational advantages risks weakening higher education’s role as a pathway to opportunity,
Harvard’s Proposal
In “Harvard Proposes Capping A’s to Curb Grade Inflation,” Mark Arsenault reports on how the Ivy League school is trying to make high-level grades more meaningful after a recent report found that a vast majority of grades were A’s:
Harvard undergraduates would compete for a limited number of A grades in their courses under a faculty committee proposal released Friday meant to tame grade inflation at the Ivy League school.
During the last school year, about two-thirds of all undergraduate letter grades were A’s. Under the new proposal, grades of A would be limited to 20 percent of grades in a course, with an allowance of four additional A’s.
So, for example, a professor teaching a class of 100 students would be able to award up to 24 grades of A under the proposal, which could come to a vote by faculty this spring. There would be no limits on A-minus and lower grades.
Grades of A at Harvard are supposed to be reserved for work of “extraordinary distinction,” but they have exploded to become the majority of grades awarded.
The article continues:
Views of Joshua Silverstein
Joshua Silverstein, a professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said the proposal, if approved, should effectively control inflation and make grades more meaningful. The purpose of grades, he said, “is to signal to students their level of accomplishment and subject mastery, help outside parties such as employers and graduate school admissions officers differentiate among candidates, and to help fairly disperse rewards, such as honors and merit scholarships.
“I like what Harvard is doing,” said Silverstein, who has studied and written about grading theory. “I think it’s a very important step in the right direction” to allow grades to once again serve their intended function.
Conclusion
I agree with Silverstein. If grades are determined by previously established standards regarding the percentage of ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C’, etc. then a fair comparison is more likely to occur and prospective employers would have a better measurement of academic achievement.
The answer lies in each university establishing grading standards in a similar way, and enforcing them as part of faculty evaluations. In this way, there will be a more leveling field than exists currently.
Blog posted by Steven Mintz, PhD, professor emeritus from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, on July 21,2026. You can communicate with Steve at: profdocsteve@gmail.com. Visit his website and learn more about his activities.