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Grade Inflation: What Goes Up Must Come Down; Harvard in Numbers

Adam Barton:

Here’s a quotation from one of Harvard’s many committees. Try to guess the year it was written.

“Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily — Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity … One of the chief obstacles to raising the standards of the degree is the readiness with which insincere students gain passable grades by sham work.”

This is from the “Committee on Raising the Standard” in 1894. Ever since letter grades at Harvard were established, perhaps as early as 1883 according to school archives, there’s been concern around the way they’re distributed.

There’s still a lot of talk around Harvard’s grade inflation problem today. It’s hardly a surprise to anyone who studies or teaches here that grades have risen over time. But grade inflation is inextricably linked to a worse problem, one that is seldom discussed: grade compression, where GPAs stop increasing and instead stabilize in the 3.8 to 4.0 range.

To understand grade compression, we first need to understand grade inflation. Looking at a graph of student GPAs since 1889 is sort of like looking at a graph of Harvard’s endowment: It only goes up. In 1950, when Harvey Mansfield was but a freshman at Harvard, the average GPA was estimated at 2.55. Now, it’s much closer to 3.80. Keep in mind these numbers are estimated from Crimson surveys that represent only a part of the student body, combined with third-party analyses of Harvard records, so try to focus on the long-term trend rather than specific GPA averages at any point in time.