Grade Inflation

Many colleges were involved in grade inflation; but the schools with the most evidence of this action are the Ivy League schools. Two of the schools in the Ivy League program that are known for this practice are Harvard and Princeton in a study conducted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences “in 1966, twenty two percent of Harvard undergraduate students earned A’s. By 1996, that figure rose to forty-six percent. That same year eighty-two percent of Harvard seniors graduated with honors.” They conducted the same study with Princeton University students, what they found was “In 1973, thirty one percent of all grades at Princeton were A’s; by 1997 that rose to forty three percent. Also in 1997, only twelve percent of all grades given at Princeton were below the B range. “(Rosovsky, Henery and Hartley, Matthew, Evaluation and the Academy: Are We Doing the Right Thing? (Cambridge, Massachusetts: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2002)
Grade Inflation may have legal issues but it is more of an ethical issue. The ethical ramifications of this can be seen in many of the higher priced universities; a reoccurring theme in most grade inflation articles and books is that “families paying more than $30,000.00 a year for a college education expect something more for their money than a report card full of C’s.”(USA Today, Feb. 08, 2002) Another common theme is how when many students in the same graduating class have received high marks most recruiters and other graduate schools might start to focus less on educational merit but more on who they know or put more emphasis on standardized testing . (USA Today, Feb. 08, 2002)
With that process many deserving students will not be considered for employment opportunities if they are not well connected. This process will also have students who do not test well but are very good academic students in a disadvantage when their standardized tests come back lower but their course work is worthy of high marks.

References: USA Today, Feb. 08, 2002 Rosovsky, Henery and Hartley, Matthew, Evaluation and the Academy: Are We Doing the Right Thing? (Cambridge, Massachusetts: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2002 Basinger, D. (1997). Fighting grade inflation: A misguided effort? College Teaching, v. 45, no. 3, 88-91. Horn, L., Peter, K., & Rooney, K. (2002). Profile of Undergraduates in U.S. Postsecondary Institutions: 1999-2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. Beaver, W. (1997). Declining college standards: It 's not the courses, it 's the grades. The College Board Review, no. 181, 2-7, 29.