Grade Inflation Gone Wild

Straight A’s are hard to come by, reserved only for the social loaners who devote all of their time to reading textbooks and writing essays, right? Well, not exactly. Recent studies have shown that, over the past few decades, a trend of A-giving has manifested itself in higher education. This process is now commonly known as grade inflation. Similar to inflation in the financial sense, grade inflation does have one glaringly adverse effect. Just like the dollar loses its value when the market is flooded with too many of them, A’s are being devalued with every unearned one that is given out. This phenomenon has recently become an increasingly popular topic among academics. Stuart Rojstaczer, author of “Grade Inflation Gone Wild,” and creator
He is also the creator of gradeinflation.com, a website which collects grade data, such as GPAs, from multiple colleges and universities and analyzes the trends. In his essay, Rojstaczer claims that this grade inflation is a problem that needs resolving in order to restore the value of an A and to allow students to get the most out of their education. The root of this problem, according to Rojstaczer, lies in the expectations of the course and its instructor. He says, “When students walk into a classroom knowing they can go through the motions and get a B+ or better, that’s what they tend to do, give minimal effort” (Rojstaczer, 75). In other words, if students do not feel much is expected of them, they will not expect much of themselves. This, in turn, leads to the student just doing what is required and, as Rojstaczer puts it, “Instead of learning, they drink” (Rojstaczer, 75). The author advocates for an active method of combatting grade inflation. To illustrate how he believes it should be done, he refers to college that has already implemented it, Princeton. Princeton, in an effort to increase the value of its A’s, created a cap for the percent of student that can receive an A per class. Other universities have followed suit and have attempted to regulate the grades which are given out. Rojstaczer concludes with a
For example, when he writes about how college students might be inclined to go to the bar instead of the library if their classes do not demand extensive studying, he does not use a research study to back that up. Instead, he uses logic. If the students are not studying, according to Rojstaczer, they will need something to do. Something that college students stereotypically do is drink. Therefore, it is likely that some students will resort to drinking in order to fill that gap. This syllogism, while being valid, has one major flaw in its soundness. The argument is valid, meaning if all of the claims were true, the conclusion would naturally follow. However, the argument is unsound as it relies too heavily on the premise that the student would turn to alcohol to fill the gap. For the most part, however, Rojstaczer is able to avoid such logical errors. The majority of his evidence comes from the reported GPAs of colleges nationwide, a credible source. It is this information that the author uses to guide readers to accepting his main claim. Another type of evidence he uses is the Princeton study. This is, overall, a reliable study. However, it is a singular, isolated example, even when paired with the two other universities mentioned by Rojstaczer. One cannot accurately project the results of every college and university by merely looking at