Inflation is in the news again. Grade inflation, that is.
Last week, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University was scheduled to vote on a proposal to cap A grades, subjecting them to a limit of 20 percent plus four students per class. The proposal also included a plan to link academic honors not to grades, but to a percentile-ranking metric. This came after a long period of grade inflation at the university, to the point that in the academic year 2024–25, 66 percent of students were awarded As, and 84 percent received either As or A-minuses.
Alarm over this trend has been rising for years. In the words of Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education, “Our current grading practices are not only undermining the functions of grading; they are also damaging the academic culture of the college.”
