College Grades Have Become a Charade. It's Time To Abolish Them. (msn.com) 234
When most students get As, grading loses all meaning as a way to encourage exceptional work and recognize excellence. From a report: Grade inflation at American universities is out of control. The statistics speak for themselves. In 1950, the average GPA at Harvard was estimated at 2.6 out of 4. By 2003, it had risen to 3.4. Today, it stands at 3.8. The more elite the college, the more lenient the standards. At Yale, for example, 80% of grades awarded in 2023 were As or A minuses. But the problem is also prevalent at less selective colleges. Across all four-year colleges in the U.S., the most commonly awarded grade is now an A. Some professors and departments, especially in STEM disciplines, have managed to uphold more stringent criteria. A few advanced courses attract such a self-selecting cohort of students that virtually all of them deserve recognition for genuinely excellent work. But for the most part, the grading scheme at many institutions has effectively become useless. An A has stopped being a mark of special academic achievement.
If everyone outside hard-core engineering, math or pre-med courses can easily get an A, the whole system loses meaning. It fails to make distinctions between different levels of achievement or to motivate students to work hard on their academic pursuits. All the while, it allows students to pretend -- to themselves and to others -- that they are performing exceptionally well. Worse, this system creates perverse incentives. To name but one, it actively punishes those who take risks by enrolling in truly challenging courses. All of this contributes to the strikingly poor record of American colleges in actually educating their students. As Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa showed in their 2011 book "Academically Adrift," the time that the average full-time college student spent studying dropped by half in the five decades after 1960, falling to about a dozen hours a week. A clear majority of college students "showed no significant progress on tests of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing," with about half failing to make any improvements at all in their first two years of higher education.
If everyone outside hard-core engineering, math or pre-med courses can easily get an A, the whole system loses meaning. It fails to make distinctions between different levels of achievement or to motivate students to work hard on their academic pursuits. All the while, it allows students to pretend -- to themselves and to others -- that they are performing exceptionally well. Worse, this system creates perverse incentives. To name but one, it actively punishes those who take risks by enrolling in truly challenging courses. All of this contributes to the strikingly poor record of American colleges in actually educating their students. As Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa showed in their 2011 book "Academically Adrift," the time that the average full-time college student spent studying dropped by half in the five decades after 1960, falling to about a dozen hours a week. A clear majority of college students "showed no significant progress on tests of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing," with about half failing to make any improvements at all in their first two years of higher education.
Perverted inventives (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what for-profit "education" gets you.
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:5, Insightful)
some classes need to pass / fail only! (Score:2)
some classes need to pass / fail only!
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like it isnt the grades themselves that need to go
Or maybe the problem is a reliance on grades. Grades only matter in a relative sense, especially when comparing among a set of new college graduates applying for the same job.
However, the assumption that grades correlate with expected future job performance is weak for several reasons.
First, most of what is taught in classes aren't useful for most jobs. Take calculus, for example. Aside from future math teachers, the need to understand and memorize solutions for closed-form functions is absolutely useless. Even the majority of content of most computer science classes will never be seen again by most programmers. Grades are as useful as job performance predictors as puzzle questions, i.e., they're useless but used since we don't have anything practical that is better.
Second, grades aren't comparable across schools. In fact, they aren't even comparable within the same school due to different standards for grading, different difficulty of tests, and different grading curves. Any researcher who tries to extract comparisons based on metrics that are as non-standard as grades are would be laughed at.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with some, but I do agree with the idea that focusing on grades as a single success factor is a problem. My school didn't have an honors program, but I've seen students who were in such programs and they had immense pressure to both take those classes and also to get an A, and if there was a B there'd be a lecture from the parents.
This isn't necessarily new. My dad, a teacher, would tell stories about how some of his classmates in college would sabatoge other students because there was grading o
Re: Perverted inventives (Score:3)
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there is grading on a curve, what you describe, but also grading according to scores. Ie, if ahead of time the prof says "90%" or higher is an A, then that is completely fair. Grading on a curve assumes the class is evenly distributed, or that some students will fail even if they know the material well. For a teacher, if the entire class learns the material well then that is a success and there's no need to pick a few to reward and a few to punish while calling everyone else merely mediocre. Likewise, if the entire class goofs off and learns nothing then ignore the curve and flunk them all (and be prepared for the principal or dean to complain).
Re: (Score:3)
Grades should be meaningful
Yes if graded correctly. I know a Doctoral Candidate who was told explicitly to stop grading to "hard", this was at an elite private non-profit Univ. He said he was grading accurately but was told to give more As and Bs.
Yes, grading is a joke now, I think this started in the early 80s with grading "on the curve".
Re: (Score:2)
It was way before the '80s. During the Vietnam war teachers were trying to avoid flunking out students so they wouldn't get drafted due to losing their student deferments. After that, we were off to the races.
Perverted incentives indeed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Teachers teach the class AND assign the grades. The same person does both, in almost all cases.
So if a teacher gives out a lot of bad grades, that reflects negatively on the teacher. It makes the teacher look like a bad teacher. The incentive to give out good grades is very direct, even ignoring the wrath of the students who got a bad grade after having gone into debt to take the class.
Statistically speaking, people have no honor. People, in general, will not honestly give themselves a poor rating when they have strong incentives to give themselves high ratings. Any system that relies on such honor is doomed to fail.
There are exceptions of course. But such exceptions do not negate the rule.
So instead we should do what the institution of law does: The tests are administered by a devoted testing body that has no loyalty to the school providing the education.
The teacher teaches, the tester tests. The student pays the teacher to test. The student pays the tester separately for the test, because the two are completely separate businesses. Schools can then be judged by how many passing students they produce, students are never penalized in any way if they opt for more challenging "honors" courses or whatever, the testers can be held to an objective standard of testing criteria, and it's all better.
The biggest problem with this is it is a step towards a true meritocracy. People hate meritocracies because they can't succeed through connections, bribes, or appeals to compassion. But, we get better results overall.
Re: (Score:3)
Where I live, there is a national standardized test for all college students just after graduation. Individual grades aren't public, but college scores (by course) are. So new students and companies can compare which colleges are best or worst. Also, if a college scores below 2 (scores go up to 5) for two years in a row, the government may forbid it to accept new students for a period or even close the course.
Alife Kohn: From Degrading to De-Grading (1999) (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti... [alfiekohn.org] ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..." ...
"1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself.
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks.
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking.
4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective.
5. Grades distort the curriculum.
6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning.
7. Grades encourage cheating.
8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students.
9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other.
For a more detailed look at the issues discussed in this article, please see the books Punished by Rewards and The Schools Our Children Deserve as well as the DVD No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning. Click here ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti... [alfiekohn.org] ) for a more recent article about the subject that offers a skeptical look at âoestandards-basedâ grading, a more comprehensive analysis of why grading is inherently counterproductive, and more examples of teachers who have stopped doing it."
Re: Alife Kohn: From Degrading to De-Grading (1999 (Score:3)
Real life performance is subjective. People in jobs can have adversarial relationships with their peers over pay and performance. Everyone is not the same - equality is a farce. Not all doctors, teachers, or engineers are equal. Thatâ(TM)s why some have better clinical/classroom/technical outcomes. Why are Google products better or worse than Samsung or Apple?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Grades are useful. They're just not as useful as they used to be.
A generation ago, an A meant top 10%. So companies avoided hiring students with D's and F's.
Today, an A means top 50%. So companies avoid hiring B students.
The problem is that companies can no longer distinguish the best students, so more rigorous job interviews are needed.
Re: Alife Kohn: From Degrading to De-Grading (1999 (Score:3)
And after the successful job interview it's revealed that the person employed is great at talking but can't handle a screwdriver and a grease gun even if their life depended on it.
Re: Alife Kohn: From Degrading to De-Grading (1999 (Score:4, Insightful)
can't handle a screwdriver and a grease gun even if their life depended on it.
If the job requires handling a screwdriver, then handling a screwdriver needs to be part of the interview.
If your interview process is just "talking", you're doing it wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
And a lot of HR people doing the interview can't handle a screwdriver themselves.
If "HR people" are conducting the interview, you're doing it WAY wrong.
Grades are like Democracy... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Or they are all excellent. Hm?
What is wrong with giving an objective grade?
Why the funk do Americans think that only 1% can get an A and the rest must be worse?
In my martial arts federation we have 2 times a year a grading ceremony with about 40 students applying for grading.
Most of the time all pass. As they objectively fulfil all criteria for passing.
There is no damn: lets sort them by skills and lets fail x% to keep the niveau up. You either can answer all questions or you can't.
If you fail some questions then the jury has to decide: was it good enough to pass.
Depends on if you want meritocracy or not.
We can have a two tiered system. First is everyone passes, no failures, and give 100 percent of the students a degree. That will keep them and mommy and daddy happy.
Then we can have a section where you actually have to show you know the material, and have studying and tests, and show that you know what you are doing.
I'm still working because the modern product is not very good. They stress badly - usually because they aren't competent, and fail quickly.
Be
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what for-profit "education" gets you.
What Ivy League school is a for-profit institution? They all lose money on tuition. Harvard has an obscene endowment because wealthy grads donate to it.
These schools are grading easy because of an ideology shift in the faculty and administration. Rigor and standards are now considered unfair and discriminatory. It's the ultimate in the everyone gets a trophy mindset that has been creeping in since the 90's.
Re: (Score:3)
These schools are grading easy because of an ideology shift in the faculty and administration. Rigor and standards are now considered unfair and discriminatory. It's the ultimate in the everyone gets a trophy mindset that has been creeping in since the 90's.
They don't want to hear that.
Despite the ideology driven agenda of eliminating meritocracy and imposition of everyone gets the same outcome regrdless of competency, that collides with the truth just as badly as flat earthers versus objective reality does.
A hella lot of work requires in depth knowledge, critical thinking and understanding how to interact with others who are similarly gifted. My field relies on physics, and not an opinion in the mix, and the ability to troubleshoot. Likewise, no opinions
Re: (Score:2)
Harvard tuition averages $57,000 per year, while the US average in-state tuition at public, four-year colleges is $10,740. https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com] If Harvard is losing money at $57K a year, it's not because their tuition is "so low" that it doesn't cover costs. If they're not making a profit, they certainly *should* be, at that price!
What is worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a moronic definition of a for-profit school.
Is it not vastly more moronic you ignore the actual profit they make because it's via other means than tuition?
Re:What is worse... (Score:5, Informative)
Is it not vastly more moronic you ignore the actual profit they make because it's via other means than tuition?
Harvard is a 503 (c) organization. It is explicitly "non-profit".
Yes, money comes in. But that doesn't make it "for-profit".
All of the money is either spent or placed in the endowment.
"For-profit" doesn't mean "involves money". It means the organization's purpose is to generate a profit that can be distributed to shareholders, partners or other owners.
"For-profit College" has a legal and common-sense definition, and Harvard fits neither.
For-profit higher education in America [wikipedia.org]
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:4, Informative)
Harvard is a 503(c) non-profit.
There is no requirement that a 503(c) "break-even" on an annual basis.
you can't fail people and keep their money! (Score:2)
you can't fail people and keep their money!
that with the high costs and loans really pushes the pressure to pass students.
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is what 48 years of a higher education system underwritten with government guarantees on loan repayment and later direct government underwriting of college loans gets you, especially when combined with a public school system that makes it virtually impossible to fail and redo a grade or get expelled from school for violence or terroristic threats.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is about how loudly the students whine, and even more, how loudly their parents whine and threaten the dean to take action. This is not about being for-profit, because even non-profit schools see similar issues. The complaint of "my dad pays your salary!" is as old as schools are, except that now the parents demand high grades for low effort for their angels.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Perverted inventives (Score:4, Funny)
Guessing Stormy Daniels was a TA, and not a full professor.
Re: Perverted inventives (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't get rid of grades,fix the educational system (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't get rid of grades,fix the educational sys (Score:5, Insightful)
Real curve grading is unjust. If the lowest grade is 85 that student does not deserve to fail.
Skewing also has problems. I recall a college freshman bio class (200 students) where the final exam had a ton of material never covered in class or assigned reading. I got a 45. That was the highest grade of 199 students - one student was a foreign student with a BS equivalent who had to take the program all over because of some non-transferrable situation. He got a 65. So I got a 70, skewed, and about 170 kids failed the class (final counted for half) after skew.
I quickly learned an Ivy League education is not at all ideal - just smart kids moving fast. Only a few excellent professors which every decent school has.
Having good teachers teaching well and grading fairly is all we really need. My high school did better, frankly.
If you have to skew, at least throw out the 4+sigma grades.
Real curve grading is unjust, so is the real world (Score:2)
Re:Real curve grading is unjust, so is the real wo (Score:5, Insightful)
The "real world" is what we together make it. Don't justify the existence of scams because plenty of other scams exist.
Re: (Score:2)
If higher learning is to have any relevance at all, it had better prepare its constituency (e.g., students) for the real world. Just to say, the real world isn't fair.
Absolutely correct. Many large companies fire the bottom 10% of their employees every year, no matter how good some of those individuals may be. No one complains, after all you want the best people for the job.
Re:Real curve grading is unjust, so is the real wo (Score:4, Insightful)
No one complains, after all you want the best people for the job.
No one complains because the people who are really good leave and work elsewhere. Stack ranking encourages back-stabbing, and hostility. It only works when people don't have to collaborate together (ie, independent sales teams).
Re:Don't get rid of grades,fix the educational sys (Score:4, Insightful)
Mid term comes along and I went in feeling pretty good. The questions seemed correct, harder than the homework but not anything I didn't recognize. I went in thinking I'll get maybe a 60% or so, and with the curve I should bump up to a B.
Come back next week and get my midterm back. I got a 17%. I was crushed. I worked harder than ever to get this grade. So the class starts, the professor walks up and says "Ok! So you all have your grades. The median score was a 12%, so here's your curve." My 17%? B+.
I dropped the class and transferred out of Econ entirely. what's the damned point if you're teaching stuff where the median student gets less than a 10th of what you say in class, despite requiring 50% more hours than any other class on campus? What a scam. I moved to liberal arts degree, read books and wrote papers, and got a job and am doing just fine and my college degree did nothing other than to say I went to that college.
Welcome to grading on a curve.
Re: (Score:2)
If the population size is a 20-person class, then yes, curve grading is unjust. But if a university has thousands of students, then the normal curve *does* apply, and it's reasonable to expect that graves should fall within normal standard deviations. If 95% of your students are getting A's, then A's are nothing more than a participation trophy.
Real life includes the possibility of failure. If we want to educate our children, they need to learn that failure *is* a possible outcome, and do what it takes to a
Re: Don't get rid of grades,fix the educational sy (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you understand how the normal curve, or grades, work. Or at least, how grades *used* to work.
Back in my day, a C was *average.* So if you did your work, you got a C. If you did better than average, you got a B, and if you did exceptional work, you got an A.
Your view that "if all the students learned the material, they should all get A's" is exactly the kind of attitude that has caused grade inflation. Only the best should get A's, not "everybody."
Re:Don't get rid of grades,fix the educational sys (Score:5, Interesting)
Ehhhh
Back when I was grading (it's been a while!)
Basically we were given the grade distribution of the students in their previous year's exam. Beyond that it was up to the lecturer, though one was expected to justify a significant deviation in the distribution of grades.
It's tricky because it's really really hard to judge the level of an exam when you are setting it. The students don't deserve to be fucked over because you set the exam too hard. Cuts both ways, see?
Re: (Score:3)
'there has to be some absolute point at which you say "the person taking this class did not learn enough from it to claim they understand it".'
If so, there there also has to be some absolute point at which you say "The person taking this class *did* learn enough to claim they understand it."
Having the lowest grade is a *relative* point.
Gotta test changes in real world (Score:2)
I started writing a diatribe on why various suggested changes may won't work, but there are so many variables that I decided it's not realistic to forecast the results without actual road-testing.
Corporations, colleges, and students all want to "game the system" in their favor, and taking away one lever from them will just cause them to juice the remaining levers in ways that are hard to predict when combined with each entity, as it's a cat-and-mouse-and-dog game: a 3-body-problem.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes no sense. If you're qualified, then you can do the job. If you're the best person for the job, but not qualified -- then you can't do the job, and in fact no one can. And no kind of college grading scheme can answer that question, with at most a few temporary exceptions for recent graduates.
But yeah, we're seeing the symptoms of other problems -- people going to college when they don't really want to learn, scholarships being based on GPA, employment being based on often irrelevant details about
Re: (Score:2)
The only acceptable method to me is a grade based on proof of material learned - and a nice percentage will do over a letter grade.
If you legitimately earn a 90, you should get your 90.
That works, coupled with a demanding course. (Score:2)
There is an expectation that some (small) percentage of the class will fail despite their best efforts. Reasonably, the bulk of the class will end up somewhere around 'C' level (2.0, satisfactory) and only some few (With the exception of computing the Valedictorian/Salutatorian for the class, can we also get rid of that GPA>4.0 thing? That's the whole reason PHB's are always yelling about wanting 110% out of everybody.
I should've checked the preview . . . (Score:2)
That got carved up somehow, I'm guessing I missed a tag somewhere.
There is an expectation that some (small) percentage of the class will fail despite their best efforts. Reasonably, the bulk of the class will end up somewhere around 'C' level (2.0, satisfactory) and only some few will display the excellence that merits a grade of 'A'.
(With the exception of computing the Valedictorian/Salutatorian for the class, can we also get rid of that GPA>4.0 thing? That's the whole reason PHB's are always yelling
Be careful of side effects (Score:3)
Many scholarships are based on maintaining various GPA's (like a B average instead of a passing C).
Changing the grading scale could easily destroy affordability.
Re: (Score:2)
Either the scholarships could change or they're already being abused.
It sounds like with these metrics they should currently have different standards based on major and college.
Were that the case it would be easy to handle one college doing grade reform.
Or maybe today's students are better? (Score:2)
basketball and football need real minor leagues (Score:2)
basketball and football need real minor leagues.
Maybe at the very least do something about not needing the joke classes that some players are put in just for them to make min standards when the team needs at class time for sports.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep football and basketball in school. And add a class to teach them just how few spots there are for them to really make a living. Even in national leagues, only the best of the best will have money set aside for when their body falls apart at a relatively young age. The rest need to be ready to fall back to a regular job.
Though CTEs do limit your future job prospects even if you had an education at one time.
The problem isn't grades (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Where would kids go to party after high school? How would they get homogenized? How would parents make sure they get a good Christian education??
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In which grade should they have taught you the elements of grammar?
As all around (Score:3)
For many arts and humanities courses, that don't have demonstrable facts and everything is based on consensus and opinion, giving everyone an A is probably an honest assessment. At least it removes the human element and avoids conflict with students who feel they should have got a better mark
Re:As all around (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point is when she made it painfully obvious to me that she had no undergarments on, exposing all of her lovely naughty bits to me and encouraging me to 'see it her way'. Me, being a moron, told her that I appreciated her position, but that that would not be fair to the rest of the class, left, went directly to the head of the department and alerted him to the encounter... He chuckled and told me that as I was only a visiting lecturer, I should have taken her up on her offer then failed her just the same...
Apparently she was well - known amongst the faculty and used this mode of 'education' to secure her straight A status, without actually attending many classes, if any.
True story.
yep, truth is stranger than fiction... Back then I was not fat as I am now, not bald but merely balding, but almost 20 years her senior and pretty damn sure that she'd gratefully fuck anyone or their dog for a grade because I am in no way a handsome man. Back then and even more so now.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
American? I have heard these stories from American colleagues. Never happens much on the UK. probably doesn't help that a bunch of things are handled centrally (by design so lecturers can't be pressured), and final exams (which are submitted anonymised) play a larger role.
But nah you're not a moron for having an ethical backbone.
Re:As all around (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, you could have gotten your house painted for free.
Grades (Score:2, Interesting)
Were there successes and failures? (Score:2)
Was the course work hard enough that some (hopefully, small) percentage of the class failed? Was the course work demanding enough that only a small percentage of the class could achieve excellence? If the graded curve seems unreasonable or unfair, I'll settle for the Bell curve - but I need some way to gauge a college graduate's ability to succeed in the competitive real world. The real world's not fair, teaching students to expect otherwise would be a mistake.
Re: Were there successes and failures? (Score:2)
I dunno.... what's your goal? (Score:4, Insightful)
If mastery of the material at an A level leads to competent graduates, and most people graduate, you're succeeding.
If you feel it necessary to stratify the graduates arbitrarily, well... just know that that's what you're doing.
On the other hand you still need to be able to fail out the incompetent.
How about fixing grading (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is the "fix" to abolish grades (or even colleges) instead of rolling back grade inflation?
Re: (Score:3)
That's my vote: I never had a single grade my entire college career (I was in the last class at my university to have optional grades and "narrative evaluations").
I learned more and had a less stressful experience, and suffered no negative issues when I graduated.
Re: (Score:3)
Pass/fail. Professors can determine who has mastered the material with the required level of proficiency or not. All that will be visible to future employers is that you got a degree from Harvard Total Landscaping, and that's either good enough for them or it isn't.
There have been places I've worked at with arbitrary rules like: 3.8 GPA from a top-tier school, or if non-top tier, it has to be 4.0. Obviously there are many good, not top tier schools that are very strict and hold to their standards. While we
Grade curves (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be fooled that this is not happening in STEM. A classical grade curve (circa 2000) would have an average of 70% and a standard deviation of 10%. Greater than 1 standard deviation (80%) gets you an A. Greater than 2 standard deviations (90%) gets you an A+. Likewise, less than two standard deviations (50%) is a failure. Summed over a few course, you could truly identify exceptional students. I doubt that the extremely low standard deviations of the curves described in the summary provide much more than noise.
But that is by design. Even in STEM, there is now the idea that every student is exceptional *if* given the right instruction. See, back in 2000, the problem was that all the instructors sucked. Nowadays, all the instructors are amazing and that is why everyone gets at least an 80% and there are no failures. Well, you can either believe that or that standards slipped.
How did this happen? Academia is now big business. Students are the customers and the customer is never wrong.
Back in Ancient times ... (Score:2)
No. Not abolish. (Score:3)
I'm a prof at a teaching college in Seitzerland. We have grading guidelines. The average grade in a course should generally not exceed X, where X to a B- or maybe a C+ in the US. In my first year courses, my grades are generally lower than that. I tend to fail around half of the students. It either gets their attention, or they realize that they're in the wrong place.
You don't need to abolish grades. You do need to stop handing out participation trophies.
Re: (Score:3)
"I tend to fail around half of the students. It either gets their attention, or they realize that they're in the wrong place."
The third possibility is that you're bad at teaching.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: No. Not abolish. (Score:3)
Note my wording: "should generally". The guideline is flexible. Over the years, I have had super classes where most people got an A. I have had disaster classes where nearly he entire class failed.
The goal is to give students a grade that reflects their demonstrated ability in the subject matter. Your average, typical student is a B-/C+ student. That's all the guideline says, and we can deviate as needed.
In weeder classes, where I usually fail half the students, that failure is important. Students who w
Students have become customers (Score:2)
Students have become customers, and the universities now sell a product. Higher grades are there to please the customer. To fix the system, college needs to be much, much cheaper and much more bare-bones, with simple dormitory life and few frills. That way, it's clear that going to college is not about living a comfy lifestyle, but about getting an education, nor is it about paying for a product and getting what you paid for.
Re: (Score:2)
GPA inflation is just a symptom (Score:2)
The real issue is that we have confused and blended the purpose of education as it once was with the purpose as it became during the industrial revolution.
When it became the predominant belief that a better educated workforce would translate into economic growth for the country, we invested accordingly. Minimum mandatory education, public schools, public grants, etc. all for the purpose of increasing our economic output. There was a time when more education for the individual DID generally translate to more
But high school was free* and college was not but (Score:2)
But high school was free* and college was not but part time summer jobs where able to pay for most of back in the 70's.
In the 80's and 90's is when the unlimited loan tap really opened.
When you have student loans with very limited bankruptcy the schools and banks have no skin in the game to hold down costs, fees, or even teaching skills needed to get an job.
I was an old-fashioned professor but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not in America (Full disclaimer: English is not my native tongue)., I was an old-fashioned professor who tried not to give everybody an A. My demands were much lower than I deemed necessary to teach for professional life but I did not want to give away A for free. I had lots of problems with students, who did whatever it took to get an A (every partial they failed produced a jihad against me), and with the dean and administrators that amplified the complaints of the students and pressured me to give away As for free. My father and my mother were teachers and, for them, like for me, academic quality was a religion. I felt dirty when I gave away As for free. I started taking anxiolytics because of so many problems.
The dean got tired with me and they fired me. So I ended up in my 50s with no jobs or prospects. Now, I survive with my wife's salary and some classes I give in another university. This university has told me implicitly that they want good grades. I have learned my lesson. A grades for everybody. It is either this or not having a job.
I understand that students want to have good grades without working. They are young and immature, as all of us were when we were young. But I can't bear grown-ups sc*wing-up students' lives. If everybody receives an A, the degree is worth nothing. Then you have to pay for masters, languages and have lots of connections to have a job. This didn't happen in my time. Having a Bachelor's degree was enough to get a job because it proved that you were hardworking and knowledgeable (Full disclaimer, I have a PhD when this was tough).
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like you're a victim of Goodhart's law -- "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". See, the A is not about education, but rather a passport to a better future.
Competition makes for improved people. (Score:3)
If your child is dumb wouldn't you rather know it now? You can better help them plan a future while making your own efforts knowledgeable with less waste.
If your child is smarter you would absolutely want to know it now. This no child left behind crap assumes a level playing field. It isn't, some are smart; some are less so; and everyone else is in between.
Part of the problem is student reviews (Score:2)
The reviews and scores that a student gives to a professor in a particular class are very strongly correlated to the grade that they receive. So, it's no surprise that professors who wish to receive teaching awards and the accompanying compensation and recognition will inflate the grade they give to students.
Ivys are different (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Vs Back in the 70s and 80s, where acceptance to grad school was almost a certainty with a 3.0 GPA, and many with 2.8 GPAs would be accepted. 2.0 was average grade during those years.
I've dealt with several generations at work... (Score:2)
All I can say is that in this Post-Gen Z world, EVERYBODY gets a Gold Star!!!
Could we actually be getting smarter? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We did take the lead out of the gasoline.
Re: (Score:3)
This sounds like a punchline to a joke, but it's really not: people born in the 1960s and the 1970s (when leaded gas consumption was skyrocketing) are estimated to have lost about 6-7 IQ points as a result.
(Side note: IQ was never meant to measure average or above intelligence: it was meant to be a tool to identify the handicapped. It's arguable how well what you and I would consider to be "intelligence" truly correlates to IQ.)
That being said, most IQ scales group "average" intelligence in increments of 2
Education will finally be disrupted by AI (Score:3)
"Self-regulation" problem (Score:2)
I Have a Grade-Less Transcript (Score:2)
I was in the last graduating class of UC Santa Cruz to not have mandatory grades ... and it's a tragedy that the university switched to mandatory grades. Instead of grades, I received "narrative evaluations".
Some of these evaluations were close to grades. My Intro to Computer Science evaluation, for instance, was basically just "student scored X on the midterm, Y on important assignment #1, #2, and #3, and Z on the final" ... which was totally reasonable for a large class like that.
But my smaller humaniti
No (Score:2)
We need to fix grade inflation.
Obligatory (Score:2)
Fat, drunk, and stupid is now way to go through life.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't confuse education with what universities do. Every year those two diverge a little more.
Most professors have no pedagogy training (Score:2)
They've never been taught how to construct a test; have no idea what sort of statistical distribution is plausible for their class size; or even explain things to people who don't already know the answer.
They can be considered qualified to teach undergraduate courses by virtue of having once taken it. (Also, in grad school I was considered qualified to TA for a course by virtue of having once taken it.)
What makes you think the grades they give have any meaning whatsoever?
Huh? They've always been meaningless (Score:3)
How many employers actually ask for your GPA? I've never been asked, nor have I ever asked. GPA in no way measures your ability to apply what you've learned. It also doesn't mean that you've retain what you've learned. Most people memorize in order to do well on tests, and then 6 months later they forget.
I'm sure there are many employers who ask for your GPA, but it must be low. Like 1%. When I interview someone, we don't care about what grade they got. That's meaningless for most businesses. We ask technical questions, then give scenarios related to the position and judge their answer. We also ask about past positions and see if they can explain technical issues they've run into and how they were resolved.
So maybe non-stem graduates easily get A's because non-stem employers don't care about GPA?
Marks mean nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
I heard of a man who got top marks at a very good US university. His professors were so proud of him.
He was from Iran. The only way he could get out was on a student visa, he got good marks on an M.Sc. in Iran. He went to Turkey, where he enrolled for exactly the same M.Sc and got very high marks. That got him a student visa to the US where he enrolled in the exact same degree a third time. It was child's play at that point, and all that mattered was the GPA.
The system rewards people who don't try new subje
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's time to abolish... colleges
It's certainly time to re-think them. It's pretty obvious that the old model is broken.