Feel down about that B+ in chemistry?
“A” is now the most common grade awarded at universities in the United States. Between 1990 and 2020, grade point averages rose by over 16%.
Known as “grade inflation,” officials from the Harvard University Office of Undergraduate Education first brought attention to this bloating last year. In February, a faculty committee proposed around 20% of grades given in a course could be A’s, with an additional allowance of four As. In a class with 100 students, 24 could receive A’s.
Harvard’s measure purports to “give meaning” back to an A. Students should have to work hard to earn a high grade and demonstrate clear understanding of a course’s material. Yet, teachers simply giving out worse grades is a poor way to tackle grade inflation.
Students in The New York Times’ “Current Events Conversation” pointed out this strategy would foster an atmosphere of intense competition in the classroom. Learning would fall by the wayside as students’ focus is placed more on what to do to earn the high grade. It becomes “what work will this professor grade highly” instead of “how can my work demonstrate what I’ve learned.”
Grade inflation isn’t limited to Harvard. In the 2020-21 academic year at Brown University, 67% of grades were A’s, up from 39% in 1993. Conversely, the amount of B’s given out has been declining. At IU’s own Kelley School of Business, administrators put new policies in place in 2025 to curb grade inflation as well. There were instructions to keep section grade point averages from 3.3 out of 4 to 3.5, a similar solution to Harvard’s.
The cost of college is another problem with capping grades. Students pay large sums of money to attend their universities, which means they expect to get something back. Classes they take must be worth the money they spent. That means good grades and gaining credit toward graduation.
That stems from a deeper perception: Anything below an A is now a bad grade.
To solve grade inflation’s perception problem, universities should bid farewell to letter grades altogether, thereby underscoring true mastery of skills rather than mastery of a rubric.
The purpose of letter grades is, or should have been, gauging student performance and giving feedback. They also record achievements and topics mastered. When grading standards laxen, grades lose those purposes. They become simply a “participation trophy” for coming to class.
The National Association of Elementary School Principals offers solutions that could be applied to higher education.
With mastery grading, students are expected to successfully meet learning objectives, and they have multiple opportunities to revise their work. Once the instructor determines that they have properly mastered the skill, they move on to the next. In this system, grades become less about the letter and more about working at something until you understand it. A study out of West Virginia University on the implementation of mastery grading found that it “promoted a culture of excellence in learning” and encouraged students to view mistakes as learning opportunities rather than as personal failures.
Under contract grading, instructors decide with students on criteria for grading at the beginning of the term. Again, emphasis is placed on students personalizing their learning. In a 2004 study comparing contract grading to traditional grading, “52% of students reported higher motivation for learning and 66% reported increased responsibility for their own learning.”
The best option, though, is called “ungrading.” Students reflect on their work throughout the semester based on feedback and guidance from the instructor. Then the students assign themselves a grade, and the instructor decides whether to keep that self-assessment or change it. This ensures that students must offer effort to their work, as they will have to judge it themselves.
All these alternatives make learning the main part of the class experience.
After all, we aren’t going to remember how many A’s we got when we leave college. We’ll remember what we learned, and the hard work we put into it.
Sasha Burton (she/her) is a sophomore studying elementary education with minors in Spanish and English.
