Has grade inflation rendered GPA meaningless in higher education?
The statistics are staggering.
The average GPA at elite schools like Harvard has skyrocketed from 2.6 in 1950 to 3.8 today.
In 2023, a mindblowing 80 percent of all grades at Yale were either A or A-.
So they cater to their demands and lifestyles.
Giving out a bunch of As is an easy way to satisfy the clientele.
Additionally, Mounk suggests some professors have grown uncomfortable wielding authority over students as evaluators.
This dynamic is quite different from that of England, where Mounk taught.
Mounk contends that the American way of doing things has rendered the whole grading system meaningless.
Everyone scores an A, and students can no longer gauge their actual performance.
Employers can’t pick suitable candidates either, possibly exacerbating the talentshortagein tech.
Additionally, nearly60 percentof young applicants now use generative AI for job applications.
It’s a recipe for disaster.
However, workarounds like this are insufficient band-aids.
However, Mounk points out that universities adopting unpopular reforms would risk tanking in the rankings.
Some elite grad schools have already made this change.
Image credit:Caroline Culler
