Whip Grade Inflation Now? Why?

OMG, what's wrong with the children receiving a participation trophy. Besides if your lucky enough to get into an Ivy and a member of the Lucky Sperm club you've won the lottery. Why spend your life chasing "achievement"

Besides, I've been to the mountain and I ended up like Don Draper. Namaste.

Whip Grade Inflation Now

Schools can institute an ‘adjusted GPA’ to devalue A’s when they are too numerous.

By Neetu Arnold, WSJ

June 16, 2026 5:18 pm ET

Grade inflation is a tough problem to solve. Harvard recently announced a cap on A’s in any given class, but it doesn’t address lower grades, including A-minuses, and such measures tend to provoke faculty resistance. Dartmouth has reported median grades since 1994, and it still experienced grade inflation. There’s a way to address the grading system directly while preserving faculty autonomy: by adding an “inflation-adjusted GPA” on student transcripts.

A student’s transcript would show two overall grade-point averages. Next to the traditional GPA will appear a second number that adjusts course grades based on the median grade in each class. A student who earns an A in a course where the median grade is also an A would receive less of a boost than one who earns an A in a tougher course. If a student filled his schedule with easy-A classes, his transcript might show a traditional GPA of 4.0 and an adjusted GPA of 2.7. This large difference communicates that the student’s traditional GPA overstates his academic performance.

The risk of seeing such stark GPA discrepancies on transcripts would make it untenable for students to demand higher grades. Students would know that pressuring professors for grades they don’t deserve could backfire. High-achieving students would also have an incentive to avoid overly lenient classes or even encourage professors to grade more rigorously.

Instructors would be free to decide whether to align their grading practices with the expectations of the adjusted-GPA system or to continue grading as they wish. Many grading reforms fail to get off the ground because universities are reluctant to regulate the grading practices of individual professors. Yet although professors are free to grade more rigorously, the current incentives strongly discourage them from doing so. An adjusted-GPA system would redirect student and institutional pressure on professors away from lenient grading and toward rigor. Lenient graders rather than rigorous ones would need to adapt.

The adjusted-GPA system also improves on transcript transparency measures, such as reporting median course grades next to a student’s class grade. Although such measures are meant to provide additional context, they do little to constrain the upward drift of grades. Employers and graduate-school admissions officers don’t have time to compare every course grade with the corresponding class median.

Providing an inflation-adjusted GPA, however, makes the context legible to employers and admissions officers while also creating incentives that discourage lenient grading. Students who excel in more-challenging classes would receive a boost in their adjusted GPA. Today their outstanding performance is lost in a sea of A’s.

If universities are serious about addressing grade inflation, they will redirect incentives away from leniency and toward rigor.

Ms. Arnold is an education policy researcher at the Manhattan Institute