![\"\"](\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/kisspng-confetti.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Yes, many college degrees are worthless, but even among those supposed fields where a degree is of value, there\u2019s an issue that I only touch on from time to time: grade inflation.<\/p>\n
Suppose you\u2019re an employer, and you\u2019ve already restricted applicants to some very job-specific degree. Can you narrow it down further than that? Well, there\u2019s GPA, but when everybody always gets the same grades\u2026not only can you not distinguish between candidates, the obvious question must come to mind: \u201cif everybody gets an A, what does this degree stand for?\u201d<\/p>\n
Employers have known of this issue for some time, but not that long:<\/p>\n
The ‘Other’ College Scandal: Grade Inflation Has Turned Transcripts into Monopoly Money<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n –all paper currencies become \u201cMonopoly money\u201d eventually, so I usually use the word \u201cconfetti\u201d to get across the same point.<\/em><\/p>\n They\u2019re not just talking about degrees in Theatre, Communications, or Gender Studies here, but \u201creal\u201d majors have also lost value because you really can\u2019t give a bad grade without risk.<\/p>\n The National Association of Colleges and Employers reported in 2013 that \u201c66 percent of employers screen candidates by grade point average (GPA).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Wow, even 6 years ago employers were trying to use GPA for something. I honestly don\u2019t know how they could:<\/p>\n Consider these facts: A 50-plus-year nationwide study of the history of college grading finds that, in the early 1960s, an A grade was awarded in colleges nationwide 15 percent of the time. But today, an A is the most common grade given in college; the percentage of A grades has tripled, to 45 percent nationwide. Seventy-five percent of all grades awarded now are either A\u2019s and B\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n Please understand that we have plenty of write-off students on campus. When the above says \u201c75%\u201d of grades are A\u2019s and B\u2019s, I assure the gentle reader that pretty much any student who tries will get such grades, and while a few students who never even come to class will also get a good grade (roughly 1\/3 at a community college) the vast bulk of those \u201cbad\u201d grades go to students who can\u2019t be bothered to even show up the first day of class.<\/p>\n In case the gentle reader wonders why, allow me to explain. A student complaint is bad for a faculty member\u2019s career\u2026multiple complaints can be a career ender (two can be enough to ruin a chance at tenure).<\/p>\n In 30 years of teaching, the only students who ever complained about me were failing students, and I\u2019m hardly alone in making this observation. So, the message is clear: do not fail students.<\/p>\n Trouble is, a failing grade is no longer an F. Because D grades are so rare now, D\u2019s are also failing grades, so you can\u2019t give those (anyone else remembered Charlie Brown getting a D-, basically a pity grade?). But now C\u2019s become rare\u2026it really won\u2019t be long until awarding a B grade will run the risk of multiple administrators at your door, asking you to justify why you showed such aggression against a student.<\/p>\n Seriously, if 95% of college graduates have all A\u2019s and B\u2019s, you know full well you\u2019re really hurting a student when you award a C. But we still push the fiction that C is an average grade, even as we all know 95% of all students can\u2019t be above average.<\/p>\n When an A is the most common grade given in college, how hard is it to graduate?<\/em><\/p>\n The article took its time to identify the problem I identified at the beginning of my post. It does provide some history on grading to put things into perspective:<\/p>\n in 1969, only 7 percent of students at two- and four-year colleges reported that their grade point average was A-minus or higher. Yet in 2009, 41 percent of students reported as same. During the same period, the percentage of C grades given dropped from 25 to five percent.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n So basically only one student in 20 is getting a C grade. Yeah, that\u2019s \u201caverage.\u201d I\u2019m not a jerk, I\u2019d love for every student to be the best\u2026but I know that awarding A\u2019s to everyone is hurting the top students far more than it\u2019s helping the weakest students. College was supposed to be an opportunity to distinguish yourself but there\u2019s no way to do that when everyone gets the same grade.<\/p>\n The article presents a different problem with grade inflation:<\/p>\n But grade inflation teaches young people the opposite lesson. It teaches them that life is easy. This cannot help but to contribute to the coddled, \u201csnowflake\u201d mindset for which so many millennials are today blamed by their elders.<\/em><\/p>\n Eh, I concede some truth in the above, and I\u2019ll even share a quick anecdote:<\/p>\n \u201cI want my money back.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The above was a complaint by a student in my college algebra course, a course little different than what I learned in the 10th grade. The student didn\u2019t buy the book, came to class only sporadically, didn\u2019t submit any homework assignments (no book, after all), and missed half the tests (failing the others with grades of 39 and 25 respectively, because\u2026no book). As per my syllabus and any reasonable consideration, I failed her.<\/p>\n I remember this student because she then complained to admin, who asked me to justify in detail why I dared to fail a student who was \u201cconcerned about her grade,\u201d to quote the written complaint which may still be in my permanent record at that community college.<\/p>\n So, sure, I suppose you could call her a snowflake, but I think money is the issue. The article goes off the rails, however:<\/p>\n \u2026the older generation\u2014my generation\u2014which has been in charge and which was supposed to act like adults? We haven\u2019t. Our children are paying for our moral and educational lapse, which also is fraying the moral fiber of American society as a whole.<\/em><\/p>\n No, the above is rubbish. It\u2019s not the older generation which has caused this. It\u2019s the student loan scam (I trust the gentle reader was sitting down when reading that, because it\u2019s so rare that I make such a claim that my doing so might cause fainting).<\/p>\n The student loan scam has caused tuition to skyrocket to ridiculous levels, and this in turn is affecting our grading (with administrative pressure, supplied also by the student loan scam).<\/p>\n If you spent $10 to see a movie, and the movie was terrible, you might well write it off as a loss. How about $500? $5,000? For that kind of money, you\u2019d complain bitterly to management if you didn\u2019t receive an incredible experience.<\/p>\n Well, suppose you\u2019re spending a mere $3,000, the low end price of a college course today. You\u2019re going to want the best possible outcome there, right? An F is unacceptable\u2026and an A is really what you want for that kind of cash. No need to point fingers at a whole generation when simple economics explains what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n Under legislation proposed in the House of Representatives, the Texas \u201cContextualized Transcript\u201d bill calls for adding to transcripts the average grade given to the entire class for each of the courses on a student\u2019s transcript. This would apply to all Texas public, two-year and four-year colleges and universities. Here is an example of what it would look like:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cGeology: Individual Student\u2019s Grade: A (Average grade for the class: C+)\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The above is all hypothetical, more accurately, pure fantasy. Granted, schools that did something like the above would demonstrate integrity, and that would help students dramatically\u2026too bad our schools are not run with concepts like \u201cintegrity\u201d or \u201chelping students\u201d in mind.<\/p>\n They used to be run in that manner, but the immense money from the student loan scam makes those antiquated concepts. While the media screams about a few rich people buying their way into Harvard and the like, realize student loan debt is close to $1.6 trillion, and affects fifty million people in this country, if not more\u2026a few kids sneaking into Harvard means nothing next to that, and the grade inflation hurts everyone in any event.<\/p>\n www.professorconfess.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"