According to Rojstaczer, the average GPA at private colleges is now up to 3.3 (a B+). At public colleges and universities, it is now 3.01 (a B). Big public universities in the South and some liberal arts colleges have experienced the most inflation in recent years.
Says IHE,
Rojstaczer's findings will probably resonate with professors, many of whom regularly bemoan grade inflation and say that students are conditioned to expect good grades just for showing up, and that professors who refuse to go along get punished with harsh course evaluations. Many professors who are off the tenure track or who are pre-tenure report great fear of being punished by students (and then not rehired) if they gain a reputation for tough grading, and studies have found correlations between being an easy grader and earning good ratings at RateMyProfessors.com. [My emphasis.]
Rogstaczer notes that, at Brown University last year, most undergrade grades were A’s.
The issue matters, Rojstaczer said, because "the alternative is a student body that frequently misses class, never prepares in advance, studies about 11 hours a week if they are 'full time' students, and drinks itself into a constant stupor out of boredom. That's not an acceptable alternative anywhere." [My emphasis.]
Some experts (Rojstaczer is not an expert, though he has gathered an impressive amount of data) think that Rojstaczer is making too much of this problem. Clifford Adelman (of the Institute for Higher Education Policy) for one remarks, “‘If grade inflation is so rampant, how come at least a third of kids who start in four-year colleges don't graduate?’"
According to Rojstaczer, community colleges seem to be bucking the trend:
As to community colleges, [Kay McClenney, director of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement] said that her center's focus groups and surveys have found that students and professors at two-year institutions are on the same page on standards: both groups worry about and would oppose anything that suggests that "expectations of students may not be high enough." And she said that close student-faculty interaction at community colleges encourages frank evaluations. "Teaching and learning is what community college faculty do."
Guess so. Still, I think we need to buck a bit harder.
7 comments:
Whether or not college grades are "inflating" (i.e., trending upward), there can be no doubt that they are "inflated" (i.e., too damned high). And that won't do for reasons that Rojstaczer gives. Such inflatedness undermines the whole point of grades--if the mediocre students get B's and the best students get A's, transcripts hide much that graduate schools and employers need to know.
See College Freshmen Study Booze More than Books
According to the study discussed in this article (in USA Today), college freshmen study fewer than 9 hours per week.
Not sure I understand what they say about about "both groups." Student and faculty would oppose raising standards? Is that what this says?
Good question, 10:34. The quote in the last passage seems to mean that both students and faculty think that expectations ARE high enough. Yet the rest of the passage seems to imply the opposite.
Can you make sense of it, Chunk?
Grades are not inflated by colleges be they public or private. Faculty inflates grades and therein is the problem and the solution. If the college requires its faculty to provide rigor in the curriculum then grade inflation will disappear. Conversely, for faculty who are less inclined to incorporate rigor in their classes and as a result grade inflation continues, the college should take corrective action.
11:35, I noticed the same thing. I can make no sense of this paragraph.
12:12, the California Education Code gives to faculty considerable autonomy in the classroom, and thus I doubt that "corrections" of faculty grades (or pressures to make corrections followed by dismissal) would even be legal. This strikes me as requiring leadership, and such leadership was provided in recent years at Princeton, I think, with much success. -R
Adelman asks, "If grade inflation is so rampant, how come at least a third of kids who start in four-year colleges don't graduate?"
I don't see the conflict. Grade inflation (or "inflatedness," to use your more accurate word) is rampant. At the same time, some students are so academically dismal (re their preparation and/or their study habits) that, yes, they manage to flunk out. Others drift away for lack of seriousness or support, whatever their grades. There's no conflict here, Mr. Adelman.
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