Essay On Grade Inflation

Improved Essays
Within the last decade the competition for jobs has increased significantly. With jobs becoming more scarce and rare, the pressure for higher education is put onto students today. In high school students are instructed to stride for excellence to hopefully receive that acceptance letter to the prestigious college of their dreams. But with all that hard work does it really teach them anything when they get to college? Recently the concept of college inflation around collegiate schools today has risen tremendously. College students are receiving higher grades for assignments or work that would have received lower grades in the past. This idea of inflation for grades is absurd. Although college students today are receiving near perfect grades …show more content…
With the intentions that other schools would incorporate this idea Princeton stood alone. With no other schools willing to compromise, this left the Princeton student body outraged, complaining that with decreased availability in the job market that the campaign against bulked GPAs is coming at their own expense. What Princeton is doing with their new corral on grade inflation is the smart and right thing to do. If students today are receiving higher grades that would have gotten lower grades in the past this isn't teaching the students a thing. It’s only showing the students it is acceptable to do the same level of work that previous students were doing years before them. It doesn’t teach them that they need to exceed and continue to create better and stronger work in their assignments. Even though the Princeton students may be at a disadvantage the university is doing the right thing by showing them that you need to earn the work that you turn in. Sure the college grade inflation has benefitted students at other universities but did they really earn the grade they receive? Was the grade given to them in the idea to hopefully keep the schools gpa average at a high number, or was it given to them because they continued to nag their professor to give them and A on and assignment. At first glance the grade

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    To Grade or Not to Grade? “The real threat to excellence is not grade inflation at all; it is grades.” –Alfie Kohn, The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation Sullen-eyed, sleepless zombies stagger throughout the endless corridors. Their minds remain blank, except for their one goal: the biggest, juiciest brains. These brains are what they live for.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to the Washington Post, data has proven that there is a direct correlation between high school grade point average and the average annual adulthood earnings. According to Michael T. French, he director of the health economics research groups at the University of Miami, said “A one-unit increase in your GPA has a very sizable impact on your education and earnings.” It is for that reason that we must affirm today’s resolution to mandate a national minimum grade point average. The first point I would like to bring up today is that a national minimum grade point average would encourage students to lean more and earn a better living later in life. For every one point increase in high school grade point average earnings in adulthood increase twelve percent for men and fourteen percent for women.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Not only will some students go their whole life believing no one is more intelligent than themselves, but others will not receive an education worthy of their degree. However, the author seems to understand students are not the only ones at fault. Colleges are also scrambling to change their names to appear more prestige and competitive. Nevertheless, striving to become something they are not, and working to offer unique majors, only adds the mess. Grade inflation also lightens the load on students.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College is a coupon for success. In today’s generation, one is seen to be most successful and more likely to achieve accomplishments if they have a degree; in addition, the better the degree, the more qualifications are perceived to be prosperous. The point in general is that college, itself, holds a lot of potential that affects an individual’s life tremendously, therefore students see they have the right to verdict and combat for the grade in which they consider is deserving and reasonable. In Brent Staples’ essay, “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” he gives reasoning for the great grade inflation that is steadily increasing.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College in today’s society is seen as a lifestyle, experience, and a necessity. Millions upon millions of students are crushed by the false reality being spewed off by television on how life will be after high school. Young impressionable minds are brainwashed into believing that college isn’t the path to success, but instead it is luck. These young minds start to believe that they will become rich and famous while avoiding the dues of student loans. This false reality leads these students to view college in a negative light when in fact a college education is what could be setting them apart from their ideal lifestyle.…

    • 888 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is College Doomed?

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Traditional colleges, these days have raised their standards immensely in order to bring in smart and successful students. These colleges prioritize increasing their reputation with high grade averages, high test scores, and successful outgoing students. Colleges use this as a way to bring in more students and more profit instead of aiming to educate poor students into getting good grades. Students who may make it in and struggle may…

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College Students Need to Toughen Up Essay College Students Need to Toughen Up, Quit Their Grade Whining, is an essay written by Robert Schlesinger that critiques the grading system many college students expect. Robert states that when he was in college, “Do an adequate job, get a c,” was the standard. Schlesinger shows frustration to current college students that expect high grade for doing mediocre jobs. He disagrees with students that believe that their grades should show the amount of effort they put into their work.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Lazy A Suzanne E. Fry writes “Some students feel that success is owed to them; after all, they did not spend thousand of dollars a year not to yield results”(Fry 10). In her article, she brings out her view that relaxing grades or the lower performance needed to achieve good grades, cause the quality of education to suffer and teaches student they don 't need to work hard to succeed are completely valid; it is seen in the way student pick classes today and their time spent studying. Suzanne E. Fry in the article, Grade Inflation argues that the inflation of grades going on in higher education is harmful to all involved. Fry points out that when A’s are easier to achieve students are taught that they don 't need to work hard. She shows that…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Has anyone thought of school and been like “Hmm, professors might give them a better grade if they complain to her about how they feel they did a better job at that assignment?” Or how about, “Wow there is so much free time from studying that they should just all go get drunk?” Says no student ever. But truthfully after reading “Grade Inflation Gone Wild” by Stuart Rojstaczer and “Doesn’t Anyone Get a C Anymore” by Phil Primack that is apparently the mentality that some people involved in school system has adapted, students and professors; which will be discussed in this essay. Whoever heard of grade inflation?…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Former professor of geophysics at Duke University, Stuart Rojstaczer is a notable author and coauthor of many studies, books, and articles in his career. He has a PhD in applied earth and sciences and has also created a website on grade inflation, which he has done much research on. Rojstaczer wrote “Grade Inflation Gone Wild”, an opinion editorial in the Christian Science Monitor, which is particularly focused on grade inflation in the United States. Rojstaczer claims that many people, professors, and administrators turn their backs on the ongoing grade inflation at universities and colleges which must be addressed and fixed. Rojstaczer highlights the impact that grade inflation has on students and their education level but does not give adequate…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Grade Inflation: In Alfie Kohn’s article, “The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation,” Kohn analyzes the complaints of student’s grades rising over the years. During his analysis Kohn looked for data that demonstrated reasons why grades were thought to have been inflated versus the students motivation behind achieving higher grades. Kohn also explains that it is difficult to determine the reasoning behind grade inflation claims. These claims may be false depending on the time period in which the claims were evaluated (Bergmann 261).…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As any student knows, grades are reflective of their accomplishments in a given class. However, grades mean much more to students than whether they know the material or not. Grades mean whether or not someone will get into their college of choice, whether or not they have to retake that class they had failed as a result of an emotional semester, whether or not they are hired for a position against someone who graduated with a higher grade-point average (GPA). Students are under more duress than ever to be academically excellent because of the mounting pressure in the American education system. This pressure is due to GPA inflation and expectations of above-average academic performance.…

    • 1071 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Like many students, college students always want the easiest way to attain a good grade. That was what I experienced in high school. Teachers give credit for work completed rather than the accuracy of the work and students would receive credit for things that had nothing to do with materials being taught in class. For example, my teacher would give extra credit on essays for bringing tissue boxes to class. In high school, students get used to slacking off and procrastinating however teachers seemed like they did not care to help discourage these bad habits.…

    • 1146 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    College students are no longer working hard to get a good grade in class because they have become accustomed to getting higher grades than they deserve. Grade inflation is the main cause of this way of thinking. Unsurprisingly, grade inflation in schools has become a subject that some have chosen to argue. An article entitled, “Grade Inflation Gone Wild,” by Stuart Rojstaczer, a former professor of geophysics at Duke University who has a PhD in Applied Earth Science, publisher of a book entitled Gone for Good: Tales for University Life After the Golden Age, and another article entitled, “Doesn’t Anybody Get a C Anymore?” by Phil Primack, an analyst, editor a journalist who teaches Journalism at M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, both suggests that grade inflation is problematic for college students today. On the contrary, there are some who believe that grade inflation is due in part to students being smarter nowadays than they were in the past.…

    • 1556 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It seems like an innocent question, but if you unravel it, a worrying trend surfaces. Grades, ideally intended as an effective means to learn, have transformed into a goal in itself. Grades force students to memorize those details necessary to pass a test, often disregarding true comprehension of the subject matter. In this process, the student’s personal development is becoming a footnote, overshadowed by the imperative significance of grades. What are the implications for educational institutions?…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays