Grade inflation here at Penn is not the world’s most pressing problem. But, as its inclusion in the Trump administration’s proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education makes clear, grade inflation has negative consequences for our reputation, just as it has negative effects in our classrooms. I aim to make the case to Penn students and to my faculty colleagues that it’s in all of our interests to institute mandatory caps on the proportion of A-range grades that are awarded in each course.
Understandably, all students want high grades, just like everyone wants to be able to drive where they are going as quickly as possible. But in both cases, without systemwide limits, we risk a system where fewer people actually get to their intended destination.
While discussions of the issue often suggest that students drive grade inflation, that’s not quite right. As professors, we are the ones who give the grades — and so ending grade inflation is something that’s fully within our control. That said, we face a collective action problem. No one wants to see their classrooms empty (or their teaching evaluations full of negativity) because of a reputation for overly harsh grading.
I don’t have exact grade data for Penn. But Harvard University just released a report detailing that for its Class of 2025, the median grade point average there was 3.83, while it was 3.64 just 10 years ago. The distance between the median GPA and a perfect 4.0 declined by almost half. And from my conversations with students and faculty around the university, it is clear that grade inflation is a real challenge in many (but not all) of our classrooms as well.
At the college level, grades play multiple roles. One is that they help students understand the quality of their academic work. But if grades are increasingly clustered at the high end, it’s harder for students to identify which areas they excel in relative to their peers — or even relative to themselves. This problem can be especially acute early in college, when students are trying to figure out their strengths to determine what to major and minor in.
As grades inflate, more of the distinction between grades seems arbitrary, and they provide less information to students about where their strengths truly lie. As a professor, grade inflation limits my ability to acknowledge top work or to build in the natural improvement that happens over the course of a semester. What’s more, if grade inflation is uneven, it can also distort students’ incentives, leading them to choose different classes and majors because they seem easier.
One thing that sometimes surprises college students is that in many fields, no one will ask about your grades after college. What employers care about is what you know and what you can do. But our college is often a prominent part of our resume, giving us added reason to care about its perceived rigor. Graduates have a stake in Penn’s reputation long after they have forgotten their grades.
Of course, for those bound for postgraduate education or seeking fellowships, grades can be especially important. But those evaluating students’ transcripts already know that there is variation in how different universities grade, and many of them will quickly become aware of any changes in grading. Penn could help them out by highlighting the median grade in each class on students’ transcripts.
As a professor, I write dozens of letters of recommendation annually, a job I take seriously because I know students’ opportunities can depend on those letters. But when there exists a reputation for inflated grades, it becomes harder for me to convince outsiders that a given record is noteworthy. My letters increasingly contain disclaimers to the effect that “even in an era of grade inflation, this student’s accomplishments are impressive.”
It’s plausible, too, that Penn’s famously competitive extracurricular culture is partly reinforced by grade inflation: If prospective employers expect high grades, students may understandably need to seek other ways to stand out.
Deflating grades may require an adjustment period. It wouldn’t be fair for students who started here in the same year to be graded very differently because of when they took a course. But we are all invested in Penn’s reputation. As a professor, I know the tireless work students put into classes. I know the disconnect between the learning that goes on here at Penn and the perceptions of it fostered by our detractors. Tackling grade inflation will not only improve education on campus but also bolster our reputation for rigor well beyond our corner of Philadelphia.
DANIEL J. HOPKINS is the Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor of Political Science at Penn. His email is danhop@sas.upenn.edu.
