Making grades and degrees irrelevant

Yale Report Shows Grade Inflation Is Real

Roughly 79 percent of the grades awarded at Yale University in the 2022–23 academic year were A’s or A-minuses, according to a new report by a Yale economics professor, published by The New York Times.

That’s more than a 20 percent increase since 2010–11, when just over 67 percent of all grades were A’s or A-minuses. But it’s still a decline from the peak pandemic years of 2020–21 and 2021–22, when the share of top grades was nearly 82 percent and 80 percent, respectively. (The 2019–20 academic year was not included in the study because most classes were offered pass-fail.)

During that same period, from 2010–11 to 2022–23, the share of B’s and lower fell from 17.4 percent to 11.3 percent.

The distribution of top grades differed by discipline; while 52.4 percent of economics grades and 55 percent of math grades were A’s or A-minuses, 80 percent of history and 81 percent of English grades were.

According to the report, the average GPA at Yale has also risen, from 3.6 in 2013–14 to 3.7 last year.

The Times, naturally, probably left out the best part, as I noted in a subsequent gmail:

I've seen a couple more expansive summaries of this study (see below, for instance). This article left out what the study also revealed, that 92% of the grades in the gender studies and african american studies courses were A's.

In my undergrad college days, we had to look hard and there were few options to find an easy A course to pad one's GPA. Not any more. Sure, if Yale had admission standards and only admitted those with SAT scores over 1500, this might make sense. But it doesn't, because with diversity and holistic admissions, academic merit and preparation matters not so much, and equity in outcomes reigns and rains supreme.

Yale should be embarrassed. Instead, they are proud. But while everyone gets a trophy, the parents, alums and employers end up with a (student with a) degree of questionable value and validity.

It would be funny were it not so tragic -- and wrong-headed. Good substance for a Babylon Bee or Lampoon article.

An Ivy League report revealed that over 90% of women and gender studies majors receive A grades, according to Yale Daily News.

The proportion of students receiving As at Yale University rose from 67% in the 2010-2011 school year to 79% in the 2022-2023 school year, according to Yale Daily News. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classes received the least As, and women and gender studies classes received the most As with 92.06%.

Back on 13 November 2023, I left this comment on a an article that highlighted "studies" degrees in the United States: "I always told the students being admitted to college that if someone suggests a major with "studies" in the title, that student should run screaming from the room, immediately. The elevation of studies over substance is part of the Great University Demise."

Here is the articles headline:

Campus Anti-Semitism and the ‘Studies’ Departments

‘College students are getting their warped moral sense from tenured instructors.’