Grade Inflation at American Colleges and Universities

One possible cause not mentioned in the article is that universities offer/require more filler courses. Last year, for example, I had to teach an intro to HTML course at a UC school. This is a required course for all non-engineering majors. To get an A, all you have to do is create a single html webpage using 10 different tags and 10 different css styles.[1] These courses are huge money makers for the university. I had 120 students in the…

I don't live in the US and I didn't go to college in the US, so my experience is largely irrelevant to the topic. But in my own country (Italy), even though grade inflation is a thing both in high schools and universities, I see something here that is in stark contrast with some statements in the article: italian students definitely study a lot, far more than in the 60s/70s/80s. In those times the university, although useful, was seen "just…

I went to Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. It's a liberal arts college with about 2,000 students. They explain to all the incoming freshmen (and their parents!) that they don't do grade inflation. An average student is a "C" student. The bookstore sells t-shirts with "C+ Better than Average!"

The most important line in the paper: "As a rough rule of thumb, the average GPA of a school today can be estimated by the rejection percentage of its applicant pool: GPA = 2.8 + Rejection Percentage /200 + (if the school is private add 0.2)" Interesting the more students a school rejects the higher its GPA seems to be. To say it another way, the more selective an institution is the higher the GPAs. ie. If you get smarter…