Grade inflation has been rampant for decades at many colleges and universities. Harvard recently did a study on it, and the findings are not at all surprising — nor are the response from students, who wailed that Harvard was attacking them.
In today’s Martin Center article, Reagan Allen reflects on the Harvard grade inflation report.
She writes:
According to the report, in 2005 “A’s” accounted for 24 percent of all grades given at Harvard College. In 2025, that number jumped to over 60 percent. Even the cutoff mark for summa cum laude status has been forced higher, standing at a 3.989 GPA as of this year, lest everyone achieve the honor. If everyone’s exceptional, is anyone really?
Why has this occurred? One reason is that professors are supposedly afraid that they’ll ruin the future for students if they were to give them grades that accurately reflect their performance.
Another factor is the desire for the maximum number of enrolled students. Allen explains:
High enrollments help secure teaching positions for graduate students and can even influence the resources given to departments. This motivates instructors to keep undergraduates signing up for their courses. Because students often compare workloads and grading patterns across departments, lenient grading can become a competitive advantage — no professor wants to be the “tough grader” whose classes empty out. To maintain high enrollment numbers, professors award higher grades.
Harvard’s proposed changes won’t amount to much, but at least it has admitted the problem.
Read the whole thing.