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There has been a 0.1 point rise in the grade points averages of American colleges every decade in the past fifty years. Grade inflation is the most in private schools according to a recent research study by Christopher Healy and Stuart Rojstaczer.

They have used a host of historical data from at least 80 four year universities and colleges. Results of their study revealed that from a national 2.52 average in the 1950s, the GPA has risen to a national average of 3.11 in the last decade. 

There was a rise of grading at the public and private schools in tandem during the early 20th century. Grading started diverging significantly from the early 1950s. Higher grades were achieved by private school students than equally qualified peers at the public schools. These grades were based on measures such as SAT scores.

This shows that there was an inflation of grades by both public and private schools, more so by the private schools. This is evident with statistics of average GPA from the year 1930 to 2006. Contemporary data was collected by the authors from 160 schools. Research studies show that at today’s universities and private colleges, the average GPA is 3.3 and at public schools, the average GPA is 3.0.

According to the authors, there is no doubt that grading standards are highly lax in private schools as a result of which students from these institutions are over represented in top law schools, business schools medical schools and PhD programs. With inflated grades, students from private schools fool the admissions officers.

Another interesting aspect that came out during these studies is that science department’s grading is lower by 0.4 points as compared to the humanities departments. For the last forty years, science students have suffered from harsher grading showed the study results. American students on the whole are hugely discouraged by lower grades in science and do not opt to pursue these disciplines, according to the author.

They say that it has become mandatory for our country to depend hugely on graduate students from foreign countries for our research in technical fields and our technology firms are forced to employ manpower from other countries due to our present ad-hoc grading system.

Those who have been seriously following grade inflation debates must not be really surprised with the overall trend, even if there are no specific statistics. There will definitely not be any incentive for institutions to set a strict and unilateral standard for grading as long as schools continue to grant higher grades to alumni to assure them of greater advantage.

It is time to re-think our strategies and work out a grading system that is to the advantage of students and provides them with a cutting edge system. Students who pass out of our universities must be able to effectively face global challenges and for this our education department must completely analyze and put into effect a fine-tuned grading system. This is in the interest of students and our nation as a whole.