The mean GPA at Hillsdale College has risen since the fall semester of 2003.
Courtesy | Joshua Trojniak
Grade-point averages at Hillsdale College have risen over the last 20 years, from about 3.1 in the fall of 2003 to about 3.4 last semester, according to Director of Institutional Research Joshua Trojniak.
“When asking a question like ‘Is there grade inflation?’ Well yes, there is,” Trojniak said. “Even at Hillsdale, that’s a thing. The follow-up question would be ‘Why?’ which is a much more difficult question to answer, because there is a lot that goes into it.”
College President Larry Arnn said if Hillsdale seems more resistant to grade inflation than other schools, it is because grades provide a marker on how well the college seeks the truth.
“Many colleges are weak these days and they do not want to disappoint the students for fear they will leave,” Arnn said in an email. “The strongest colleges are welcoming students into an elite world, and they want to make them feel elite whether they teach them anything or not.”
Yale University made headlines last year when an economics professor showed 58% of the grades it awarded in the 2022-23 school year were As and 20% were A-minuses, for a mean GPA of 3.7. A decade earlier, the mean GPA at Yale was 3.6.
Harvard University released its own report on grade inflation in 2021.
“The percentage of A-range grades given to college students in the 2020-21 academic year was 79 percent, compared to 60 percent a decade earlier,” Harvard Crimson staff reporters Rahed Hamid and Elias Schigall wrote. “Mean grades on a four-point scale were 3.80 in the 2020-21 academic year, up from 3.41 in 2002-03.”
Associate Vice President of Curriculum David Whalen said Hillsdale has not experienced grade inflation to the extent most institutions have, nor does it have a grading rubric to prevent grade inflation.
“To the best of my knowledge, the provost does not have a grading rubric other than the information about grading and grades printed in the college catalog,” Whalen said.
GPAs at Hillsdale peaked when the pandemic struck in the 2020 spring semester, averaging 3.53.
“There was a definite drop in the quality of student performance, and there was a definite drop in professors’ expectations,” Whalen said.
But there could be other causes of grade inflation besides COVID, such as a higher quality of students or GPA padding, Trojniak said.
“Grade inflation is happening, maybe we figure out why, but the follow up to that would be why does it matter?” Trojniak said.
Arnn attributed grade inflation at Hillsdale to an uptick in the quality of students.
“A faculty member, here to be unnamed, who may be the hardest grader among us, is giving somewhat higher grades than he used to,” Arnn said. “If you ask him about it, he will say that he never gives a grade, that students earn them. So long as this is the cause of higher grades, we do not mind them rising.”
Arnn also pointed out that grades improve between freshman and senior years.
“We think that means they are learning, which is the whole point,” Arnn said.
Trojniak said that there is even improvement in GPA between the freshmen’s fall and spring semester.
Whalen also said student evaluations might be a cause for grade inflation.
“There are arguments that student evaluations kicked off grade inflation,” Whalen said. “There are arguments that grade inflation is a function of faculty disinclination to do the granular, difficult work of making fine distinctions between levels and categories of performance.”
Chairman and Associate Professor of Economics Charles Steele also said in an email that student evaluations have affected grade inflation.
“There has been research showing that if an instructor wants to ensure high scores on student evaluations, the surest way is to give high grades and to communicate this in advance to students,” he wrote.
Arnn also attributed rampant grade inflation to a general collapse in standards, saying many call these standards racist.
Professor of Politics Thomas West said grade inflation has been happening for the entirety of his 50-year career.
“Perhaps the deepest cause is the post-1960s view of justice: promoting the well-being of the ‘disadvantaged,’ in this case by shying away from dishonoring people when they fail,” West said. “Low grades just seem mean.”
Stuart Rojstaczer, a former professor at Duke University and creator of GradeInflation.com, attributes grade inflation to a shift in higher education, which turned students and their families into consumers.
“Students are paying more for a product every year, and increasingly they want to get the reward of a good grade for their purchase,” Rojstaczer wrote. “Administrators and college leaders agree with these demands because the customer is always right. In this culture, professors are not only compelled to grade easier, but also to water down course content. Both intellectual rigor and grading standards have weakened.”
Whalen said if the purpose of getting an education is to get a good job, then students should select schools which make it easy for them to have great GPAs.
“But if the purpose of education has something to do with your humanity, or being a person, then maybe a better quality education is what counts,” Whalen said.
Arnn acknowledged that grades could become a substitute for human achievement.
“This is a vice that afflicts every area of human areas,” Arnn said. “We try to guard against it in the college the same way one guards against it in his own soul. One cannot guarantee success, but one can vindicate himself by laboring hard to deserve success.”
