The Great Grade Giveaway

You get an A! And you get an A! On campuses this fall, some students might feel like they’ve wandered into their own Oprah episode, except the prize is a transcript filled with top marks.


The Daily Signal

By Madison Marino Doan 

August 19, 2025


You get an A! And you get an A! On campuses this fall, some students might feel like they’ve wandered into their own Oprah episode, except the prize is a transcript filled with top marks.


For decades, the share of As has been swelling like a balloon. At Harvard, nearly 80% of grades in the 2020-2021 school year were in the “A” range. Back in 2001, Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield called this out, warning that grade inflation “devalues the currency of the academic realm” and turns grades into “worthless tokens of self-esteem.” Two decades later, his point is looking uncomfortably prophetic.

Why the flood of top grades?


Partly, it may be the erosion of core curriculum requirements. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently found that fewer than 20% of colleges require a U.S. government or history course. Not only that, but of the 1,100 institutions reviewed, less than a third mandate literature. Without foundational skills, students may shy away from harder classes, and schools, eager to keep them enrolled, may make the easy ones easier still.


Scholar George Leef has another explanation: the rise of the “consumer culture” in higher education. He points out that students increasingly see themselves as “buying” a degree, and that the rapid expansion of colleges and universities over the last 50 years has left many schools “extremely hungry for students” and more focused on maintaining enrollment than on upholding academic standards.


The numbers tell the story.


A 2011 study found that in 1960, only 15% of all college grades were A’s; they were outnumbered by both D’s and F’s combined, and the most common grade was a C. By 2013, the most common grade was an A (43%), and A’s and B’s accounted for almost three-fourths of all grades at public institutions and 86% of grades at private ones.


Another study based on 40 years of student survey data found that in 1969, only 7% of students said that they had an A grade-point average or higher, but by 2009, that figure had risen to 41%. 


Some schools are pushing back.


Dartmouth, Columbia, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have adopted measures to indicate what a grade means in a given course, such as listing the average or median grade, or the percentage of the class receiving that grade, alongside the student’s grade on the transcript.


Texas lawmakers have proposed “Honest Transcript” legislation, requiring public universities to display course-wide grade averages next to individual grades (with exceptions for courses with 10 or fewer students) and grade independent study courses as pass or fail. The measure passed the state’s House but stalled in the Senate.


Even student leaders have gotten involved, with six student body presidents representing more than 200,000 students urging President Donald Trump to require, via executive order, all Title IV universities to include the median (or average) grade for each class on students’ transcripts.


“Higher education commits academic dishonesty,” they wrote, “by treating a hard-earned A in a challenging course the same as an easy A in a remedial class.”


Restoring rigor isn’t just about fairness to high achievers. It’s about preserving the value of a college degree. Honest transcript policies won’t solve grade inflation overnight, but they would shine light into the system, curb inflationary pressure, and help employers and graduate programs tell the difference between an outstanding student and an average one with a transcript full of A’s.


If we want to restore confidence in higher education, it’s time to trade in the fanfare for a little more honesty and a lot more accountability.


https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/08/19/great-grade-giveaway/

Where Liberty and Learning Endure

June 29, 2026
As America commemorates 250 years of independence, we reflect on the enduring principles of liberty and learning that have defined Davidson College for nearly two centuries.

Bankruptcy and Higher Education

June 21, 2026
By Todd Zywicki The Wall Street Journal June 21, 2026 Auburn University is known for its agricultural and STEM programs, its flight school and athletic programs. But the land-grant university recently became notable for another reason: The board of trustees is taking control of the school back from its faculty. The board began seizing the university’s academic programs—including curriculum, course offerings, degree requirements and academic credentials—at its June 5 meeting. The board also dissolved the faculty senate and replaced it with an advisory council to the president, which includes two faculty members from each of the university’s colleges and additional members appointed by the president. The board’s assertion of authority mirrors incoming mandates by the Alabama Legislature restricting the role of faculty senates in the state’s public university system. Predictably, Auburn’s faculty has responded with howls of outrage, decrying these intrusions on the faculty’s authority over academic operations. How could outsiders appointed through a political process have the expertise to make such delicate decisions? I’ve been a professor at a state university for almost 30 years, and I am sympathetic up to a point. But before becoming a professor I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And bankruptcy law teaches an important lesson for how academia can respond to this moment. Bankruptcy gives businesses an opportunity to admit mistakes, reform and emerge stronger. Successful enterprises don’t need bankruptcy lawyers. But when an enterprise loses its way, it goes into receivership. Most universities aren’t financially bankrupt but have lost their mission and direction. Society has long recognized certain institutions’ authority to manage their own affairs. Two notable examples are licensed professionals—such as doctors and lawyers—and universities. Universities, even state universities, have run their enterprises with minimal external oversight. Faculties enjoyed substantial rights of self-governance because they committed to higher standards than those required by ordinary jobs. Professors would establish and maintain standards of scholarly integrity, freedom of speech and inquiry, and rigorous dedication to merit-based assessment of research in specialized areas. They policed their own house, enforcing norms of truth-seeking, maintaining scholarly integrity and rigor, and ensuring that students emerged with basic knowledge, employable skills and civic competency. But over the past several decades, commitment to those values collapsed. Surveys by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression consistently reveal fear among students and faculty around expressing unfashionable ideas. Universities have seen shout-downs, cancellations and even violence against speakers. Merit and quality yielded to “diversity” and “equity.” Truth-seeking has been displaced by faddish theories and ideologically charged teaching and research. Professors design esoteric departments and teach niche classes to cliques of activist students while the needs of other students and taxpayers for real education go unaddressed. Like companies I represented, universities have lost their way. And many have proved either unable or unwilling to self-correct. When that happens, it is appropriate to put institutions into receivership until they reform and rededicate themselves to their mission. At Auburn incoming students must now take certain required civics and history courses to master basic competency in U.S. history and government. To ensure the classes actually meet that objective, professors will have to make their syllabi publicly available. In the classroom, instructors will be expected to stick to the matter at hand and avoid free-ranging political punditry. Just as other companies can learn from the ones that go bankrupt, other institutions of higher education can learn something from Auburn: Fix what’s broken, or someone else might fix it for you. Mr. Zywicki is a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He was a Dartmouth College trustee, 2005-09. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bankruptcy-and-higher-education-4c2b178e

Race Preferences Are Falling Nationwide

June 19, 2026
By the Editorial Board The Wall Street Journal June 19, 2026 The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against racial preferences is turning out to be a landmark with profound consequences as its influence spreads. On Thursday the famously progressive Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a state program that issued scholarships based on race violates the U.S. Constitution. Justice Annette Ziegler wrote for the court that the Constitution requires “that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,’” and that the state cannot “use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.” That must have been painful for the activist liberal majority on the court. In a concurrence, Wisconsin Chief Justice Jill Karofsky took some shots at Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College (2023) before acknowledging that “I am bound by the precedent set forth in SFFA” and other Supreme Court rulings “when interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.” The case was brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty against a 1985 Badger State law that reserved need-based scholarships through a grant program for “Black American,” “American Indian,” “Hispanic” and some Southeast Asian undergraduate students enrolled in Wisconsin’s private and technical colleges. Last week the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a scholarship program earmarked for black University of Iowa students studying physical sciences was “impracticable” under SFFA. State governments would be wise to repeal these discriminatory grant programs, or the courts will do it for them.
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