With midterm season descending upon the Hilltop, grades have sprung to the forefront of every Georgetown student’s mind. While those pulling all-nighters on the second floor of Lauinger Library likely avoid asking themselves whether the grades they receive might be higher than they deserve, criticisms of grade inflation have proliferated across campuses nationwide.
Since the university announced new methods of calculating degree honors in early 2014, the Main Campus Executive Faculty has been working to address grade inflation at Georgetown. Over the next few weeks, it will begin sending each faculty member grade distributions for every class in their departments. Department chairs will also be provided with the cumulative and major GPAs of every student majoring in their departments.
Grade inflation has been condemned in recent years because of growing evidence that students at top-tier universities today receive—and expect—much higher grades than students historically have received at the same schools. According to figures from the Harvard Crimson cited in The Economist, the median grade for Harvard students in 2013 was an A-, up from a C+ in the 1950s.
These disparities signal shifting norms that emphasize letter grades over learning. As both the world and the job market grow more competitive, students are encouraged to maximize their GPAs, even if doing so means choosing easy courses over those that might offer a greater challenge. And, with top schools graduating too many students with A averages, employers have faced increased difficulty in distinguishing good students from exceptional ones.
From an administrative standpoint, Georgetown has done everything it can to combat this new standard. Instead, the responsibility will—and must—fall to each individual department. MCEF data will enable individual professors and department heads to evaluate whether or not grade inflation is a problem among their students.
This effort is commendable, but a one-size-fits-all policy from university administration is doomed to fail. It is impossible to account for qualitative differences across content and academic disciplines, except by addressing cases individually at the department level. Because some major disciplines, such as economics, are easier to quantify than others, such as English, each department must account for these inherent differences. University-wide curves will not be effective.
All measures to combat grade inflation must keep students in mind. Because Georgetown is one of only a few schools taking significant steps to address the issue, the university is wary of placing students at a competitive disadvantage to others who will graduate with higher GPAs. While analyzing differences between university departments could mitigate this, employers are unlikely delve so deeply. Ultimately, Georgetown’s efforts to do right by its students may be hobbled by the failure of the overall higher education system to do the same.
