Grade Inflation -- Another Look

by Christopher Matgouranis

Recently CCAP has begun to address the issue of grade inflation in American higher education, specifically examining its prevalence in Colleges/Departments of Education. We are currently working on a more expansive study. Combing through aggregate grade data on the website Campusbuddy.com, CCAP (specifically Chris Denhart and Michael Malesick) has been examining grade inflation across four separate disciplines as well as university-wide data. Continuing with past research, the field of education is a main focus and is examined along with economics, English, and physics. To date, data from more than 60 schools has been gathered. These schools are located across the country, ranging from nationally ranked state flagship universities (ex. University of Michigan) to regional state schools (ex. Central Michigan University).

Two separate indicators of grade inflation were analyzed. We looked for the average departmental/college grade point average, as well as the percent of “A” grades given in each field. The first chart depicts the average GPA, while the second shows “A” grade distributions.


Our findings are quite close to our initial estimates. Fields such as physics and economics are far behind the university averages in our sample, while English roughly keeps pace with the university, both in average GPA and “A” grade distribution. We are not making any claims that grade inflation does not exist in these disciplines—in fact, historical data show otherwise. Simply, these departments may be roughly keeping within the limits of the historical trends.

Education programs’ rampant grade inflation is an entirely different animal. Average GPAs are well over a half point higher than the university average and they also give nearly twice as many 'A' grades. This difference would be even more striking if education statistics were not included in university-wide averages, as education programs often comprise a considerable portion of the entire university.

As previous posts indicate, grade inflation within education programs can, and is, leading to serious systemic educational problems. Marginal students receive outstanding grades, often learning little. It may also be that the good students are gaining little from these programs as well. Perhaps there may be a better path towards becoming a primary or secondary school teacher. Students could forgo majoring in education and instead major in a more rigorous program (physics, economics, etc.). In order to become a teacher, they would be required to earn a teaching certificate on top of their bachelor’s degree. This route will provide a more thoroughly educated teacher, unlike many of the supposed “A” education majors currently being sent out into our K-12 schools.

CCAP will continue to examine grade inflation throughout the university system as a whole. Stay tuned.

Student Evaluations, Grade Inflation, and Declining Student Work Effort

by Richard Vedder

The Chronicle's Susannah Tully has brought my attention to a great article in the prestigious Journal of Political Economy by Scott Carrell and James West dealing with professorial approaches to teaching, student evaluations and student performance. It seems professors who do more than teach the basic bare-bones knowledge and are in some sense more rigorous tend to get poorer student evaluations (no surprise there). The less rigorous professors even get good performances out of their students in the courses taught but those students subsequently, in follow up courses, do poorer than the more rigorous professors who do more than teach to the standardized test. Sounds reasonable to me.

This got me thinking more about student evaluations and some other evidence. Specifically, I would note that student evaluations began to become popular during the 1960s and early 1970s as a common evaluation tool for faculty. I would also note that most of the great grade inflation in America has occurred since evaluations began, with national grade point averages probably rising from the 2.5 or 2.6 range in about 1960 to well over 3.0 today (admittedly, this is based on limited but I believe likely correct evidence). Professors to some extent can "buy" good evaluations by giving high grades, so the evaluation process is probably a major factor in grade inflation.

So what? What difference does it really make if the average grade is a B- or C+ instead of a B or B+? This is where another working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research comes in. Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks present evidence in Working Paper 15954 that in 1961, the average student spent 40 hours a week engaged in their studies—attending class and studying. By 2003, this had declined by nearly one-third to 27 hours weekly.

One advantage of getting old is that you gain some historical perspective, and I have been in higher education for over a half of century and believe that Babcock and Marks are right. Students do less reading, less studying, even less attending class than two generations ago. Why? They don't have to do more. With relatively little work they can get relatively high grades—say a B or even better. And student evaluations are one factor in explaining the underlying grade inflation problem. Go to the campusbuddy.com Web site and see for yourself evidence on the grade-inflation phenomenon. The colleges of education, which in my judgment should be put out of business (topic for another blog), are the worst offenders, but the problem is pretty universal.

College is getting more expensive all the time—and students are consuming less of it per year as measured by time usage. The cost of college per hour spent in studying is rising a good deal faster than what tuition data alone suggest. Why should the public subsidize mostly middle-class kids working perhaps 900 hours a year (half the average of American workers) on their studies?

What to do? We could move to reduce the impact of student evaluations, or even eliminate them. One reason for their existence—to convey knowledge to students about professor—is usually met separately by other means, such as the RateMyProfessors.com Web site. Alternatively, colleges could by mandate or the use of financial incentives encourage faculty to become more rigorous in their grading. If state subsidies started to vary inversely in size with grade-point averages, state schools would quickly reduce grade inflation. In any case, we need more research into WHY students today are working less. But I would bet a few bucks that grade inflation and student evalauations are part of the answer.

Grade Inflation

By Jim Coleman

Among some of the criticisms levied against higher ed. today are allegations of grade inflation. Students receive the same diplomas and grades as there predecessors while actually accomplishing less. CCAP recently reviewed data in the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study to see if such claims could be substantiated. We look specifically at public and private doctorial institutions between the years 1990 and 2004

There is no doubt that the grades of undergrads have been creeping up over the last 14 years. Initially, however, it is not clear if the higher grades are a result of better performing students or grade inflation. In order to see if the higher grades are the result of student’s abilities we compare their average GPAs with their Average SAT and ACT scores (see figures below). The results are mixed.






SAT score generally do not correlate well with GPAs (.39) at public institutions and inversely (-.29) at private. This suggests that student grades have little relationship with the students’ aptitude, grades increase regardless of the students’ abilities. There is a stronger but still unimpressive relationship between GPAs and ACT scores. The correlation between ACT scores and GPA is only .60 at public schools and .20 at private ones. The ACT Scores suggest that student grade increases, particularly at private schools, have little to do with the knowledge accumulated by students in high school, again suggesting grade inflation may be at work.

Obviously, a small scattering of data points over 3 year intervals isn’t going to settle the question of whether or not there is grade inflation, but the lack of a strong positive relationship between SAT and ACT scores vis-à-vis GPA should give one pause. As it suggests that current student grades are being cheapend by the watering down of academic standards.

Educating Brilliance?

by Matthew Denhart and Christopher Matgouranis

Today’s “everyone is a winner” culture has spilled over into higher education. Over the last several decades, there has been consistent grade inflation in American universities. CCAP has addressed this in past posts. It has been estimated that there has been at least a 0.1 percent increase in average student GPA in every decade since the 1950s. In 1991, for example, the average GPA according to gradeinflation.com was 2.93, but had risen to 3.11 by 2006.

So who cares? At first glance this seems like a minor problem considering all the issues facing higher education. Grade inflation might seem like a good deal for students, but actually they are the ones who suffer the most. Grades serve two purposes. The first purpose is to measure competence in a class or subject area and the second is to distinguish oneself from peers. Students and potential employers are given an unrealistic idea of their gained knowledge. Also, when good students attempt to get jobs or continue on to graduate school, they have more trouble distinguishing themselves from their average peers.

While grade inflation is present throughout universities, colleges of education are the most egregious offenders. Using official university grade records, campusbuddy.com has created a comprehensive database of grade distributions for entire universities and individual departments within schools. We found this data for the top 20 CCAP/Forbes 2009 Public Research Universities that have the requisite information for education departments. The chart below shows the average GPAs for all university classes juxtaposed with the GPAs from education classes. Additionally, for all university classes, 43 percent of the grades were an “A” while 80 percent of education grades were an “A.”

Here is a sample chart of education department grade distribution for the University of Washington. This chart gets the point across, but sadly charts for many other leading public schools are just as bad.

University of Washington, Education Department

Often problems in higher education are blamed on a poor K-12 system. However, in a Catch-22 scenario, it may be that the colleges of education are harming the K-12 system by providing poorly trained teachers who then educate the next generation of mediocre college students. In this way, grade inflation hampers the entire education system.

It could be that students taking these courses are far more brilliant than average university students. The problem with this argument is that, at least at our university, data show that entering education majors by all measures (ACT, SAT, high school GPA and class rank) are below the entering class average. Most shocking, the average high school GPA for education majors was 3.35 while their college GPA in education courses was a 3.77. Universities are supposed to be more rigorous, but this data suggests that standards are lower in college, especially in colleges of education.

All of those shocking statistics are just an initial analysis. CCAP thinks that this is a topic that warrants a much deeper investigation. Stay tuned.

Hedonistic College Students

By Richard Vedder

I heard a few snickers in the audience during the debate over college attendance that McNeil-Lehrer Productions put on with the University of Virginia's Miller Center a week ago over my comment about "hedonistic college students." (The debate, by the way, will be shown on PBS stations over the nation, especially on March 17). Many people simply do not believe data from a variety of sources that suggest that college students, on average, only spend around three hours each weekday on "education", defined to include all aspects of college instruction. Indeed, if the numbers are to be believed, education takes up far less time of college students than those studying at the high school level.

To be sure, these are average statistics, and I know a lot of students who put vastly more time into their studies, including a majority of my Whiz Kids who make CCAP home. I suspect the average student at, say, Yale, study more per week than the average student at, say, my university (Ohio University). Nonetheless, an awful lot of students spend far more time in bars or "recreation" than studying.

There are many reasons for that, including a sharp decline in professorial expectations of students. But I think a paramount reason is simple: grade inflation. New findings (that Cliff Adelman challenges but which I think based on my own personal experience is probably about right) show that the average grade point average of college students is rising about 0.1 point per decade, going from roughly 2.5 in the 1950s to 3.1 today --and higher at the more elite, selective admission schools.

This grade inflation enormously reduces student incentives to study, to learn. It creates a problem in identifying excellence. It used to be that only 5 percent or less of students had 3.7 averages or above --now at some schools 30 percent do, and it becomes hard to distinguish the "extraordinarily good student" from the merely "somewhat above average" one. The ease of getting high grades is reducing the time that students spend studying, but increases the time spent drinking, playing recreational sports, and having sex. Some of our best and ablest Americans are under worked at a time when they should be working more hours than older Americans with less physical ability to endure a hard work routine.

What about a "grade inflation tax" on excessive behavior? What if state governments reduced subsidies to state universities by 5 percent for every .10 points the accumulative student grade point average exceeded 2.8? A school with a 2.7 GPA would get full subsidy, one with a GPA of 3.15 would lose 20 percent of its subsidy. In such a world, I suspect grade inflation would come to a grinding halt, that average hours spent by students on studies would rise, learning would be enhanced, etc. Why isn't it done? Because schools don't want to seem hard-hearted, don't want to lose a competitive advantage relative to other schools, and because they don't want to deal with student complaining, etc. In short, for all the wrong reasons. Hence the solution must come from the outside --dare I say the legislatures that provide a good deal of funds to many schools?

Colleges as Country Clubs

By Richard Vedder

Easily (by a factor of two) the most commented piece in the "Innovation" blog series of the Chronicle, for which I contribute, is my "Student Evaluations, Grade Inflation, and Declining Student Effort" entry. Now, new and better evidence has emerged that, if anything, strengthens my initial convictions.

Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks are both University of California professors (different campuses) who have delved deeply into various surveys of student time use, and have related that data to other research that plausibly could explain the very real and substantial decline in the work effort of students. While some of their research is coming out in prestigious academic journals (the Review of Economics and Statistics and Economic Inquiry), the findings are nicely encapsulated in a short study done for the American Enterprise Institute. See "Leisure College, USA: The Decline in Student Study Time" available on the AEI web site.

Babcock and Marks show how the decline in hours worked by students is real, not explained by changing survey techniques or even the changing nature of college students. The decline is universal, seen fairly uniformly in different disciplines. Moreover, it cannot be explained by improved technology (e.g., computer search engines reducing manual library search time), increases in student employment work hours, etc. However, the reduction in incentives for students to study, as evidenced by grade inflation, is a likely explanation for much, I would surmise most, of the observed decline.

Moreover, Babcock and Marks present some evidence by others that suggests this decline has potentially real and meaningful (or as academics love to say these days, "non-trivial") effects on labor productivity, human capital formation and economic growth. Some evidence suggests that the nominal, or reported, rise in student grades actually significantly understates the amount of grade inflation. For example, Ralph and Todd Stinebrinker suggest a 40 minute reduction in daily study time is associated with a 0.24 point decline in student grade point average (GPA) --using the conventional four point scale. Since the decline in student studying is more than twice that great since 1961 on a daily basis, the implied fall in GPA associated with reduced work effort is at least 0.50 (half a grade). Since nominally, GPAs have risen about .50 since 1960 or so, it appears that correcting for falling standards, the standard-adjusted GPA increase has been more like a full grade level (from a C+/B- average to something like a B+/A- average). Academic success per hour, as measured by grades, has soared, despite no evidence that today's students are on average better prepared for college (and some evidence to the contrary).

Partly because of rising wealth and incomes, and partly because the Feds have vastly increased the practice of dropping money out of airplanes over student homes (or the equivalent, through student loan and grant programs), universities are becoming more like country clubs. But a third and maybe more important reason is that the students have so much free time, and they need to do something else beside drink and have sex. Hence the phenomenon of the climbing wall, the indoor track, the countless health-club like weight facilities, luxurious student union buildings, etc.

Universities are overpriced and overfunded by naive but well-meaning third parties. This has contributed to college staffs becoming spoiled and often somewhat juvenile acting rent-seekers (they go on tantrums if they don't get what they want). Meanwhile, their equally spoiled students too often are over-sexed booze hounds who are largely clueless about how our civilization evolved, what makes us rich, and what distinguishes right from wrong.

The most rational argument against the above goes like this: "we are interested in outcomes, not inputs. The financial premium for college completion is greater than ever, suggesting the productivity gains associated with college have increased over time." While a respectable argument, I think it too weakens upon close inspection, particularly given the increased use of colleges as screening devices (picking up on early research by Spence, Taubman and Wales and others). This, in turn, was no doubt partially motivated by the changing legal environment, most importantly exemplified in Griggs v. Duke Power, a Supreme Court decision that probably had an enormous influence on the college cost explosion, credential inflation, and a host of other problems gracing the American academic scene. More about that, however, in another blog.

In Defense of RMP, Part Two

By: Ryan Brady

In past years, CCAP has taken much criticism for our use of the data provided by RatemyProfessor.com as a metric in our annual college rankings published with Forbes (see our previous defense of RMP here). For those unfamiliar, RatemyProfessor.com (RMP) is a website that allows students to evaluate their professors based on a number of criteria, most prominently his/her overall quality. Many critics of the website believe that if a professor easily hands out good grades, they will probably be rewarded with higher ratings from students and therefore the data provided by the website is useless. Realizing there is very likely some validity to this criticism, we have always inversely weighted the “ease” category reported by students on the website, and included that in a professor’s RMP score that goes into the final ranking for the school.

However, we wanted to test this criticism a bit more carefully, and a relatively new website, Campusbuddy.com provides excellent data that allows us to do an interesting analysis. Campusbuddy.com provides aggregate grades given by individual professors at hundreds of public institutions. Since the data is available at the individual professor level, it can be compared with the same professor’s student evaluations from RMP.

Using both data sources we took a sample of over 1,500 professors from 10 randomly selected public schools that appear in the CCAP/Forbes annual listing of America’s Best Colleges. For these 10 schools, we obtained the data for professors in the following disciplines: Economics, Education, English and Physics. Looking specifically at the RMP overall rating of every professor versus the average G.P.A. of their students, we found that there was 35.86% correlation between overall rating and average G.P.A. The same correlation was run separately for each department, the results are as shown:

Economics: 26.13% English: 33.40%
Education: 17.28% Physics: 34.33%

There is no doubt that a correlation does in fact exist between the two variables, however it is much lower than one might have expected. Most of the disciplines do not differ much from the total correlation, although we do see that Education has a much lower correlation than the other subjects. (This is likely due to the fact that Education professors are notoriously known for giving out inflated grades. The average G.P.A. for professors in Education from this sample was 3.6, compared to an Economics G.P.A. of 2.69.)

When looking at the correlation between the “ease” ratings of RMP compared to the average G.P.A.’s, we begin to see a much better relationship. For all professors the correlation was a much higher 44.15%. For each department, the results are as shown:

Economics: 43.55% English: 39.55%
Education: 33.53% Physics: 47.09%

These results indicate that the “ease” rating in RMP is a fairly accurate indicator of the grades that these professors are giving out. Thus, our methodology used in the CCAP/Forbes ranking does indeed account for the tendency for professors to “buy” good evaluations with high grades. Since the “ease” factor is inversely weighted, our ranking does not encourage grade inflation.

While our ranking attempts to minimize the influences of grade inflation, grade inflation itself remains a problem for higher education. Colleges and universities are supposed to exist to transmit knowledge to students and prepare them to be productive citizens. Yet, based on a 2010 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study, students are spending far fewer hours studying today than they did fifty years ago. The average college student spent 40 hours per week on academics in 1961, but by 2004, this figure was down to 27 hours.

Why are students working less? The advent of professor evaluations probably has much to do with it. These evaluations create incentives for both students and professors, to have inflated grades. As professors lower standards and assign higher grades, students in turn reward their professors with better evaluations. George Leef refers to this as the “student-professor non-aggression pact.” This pact however is detrimental to student learning and the creation of human capital. Students need to be actually learning, and not just receiving subjectively high grades, for human capital to be developed. Learning in the end is what truly matters when students hit the work force, and our higher education system is in great need of some serious leadership to tackle the grade inflation problem.

Grade Inflation

by Andrew Gillen

The New York Times has an article about grade inflation that is worth checking out.

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading...

James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’ “

This can lead to tension when students have old school professors:

“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”

As someone who was recently on both sides of the grading divide I can sympathize with both. As a student, I understood the intense pressure that getting good grades imposes. At the same time, as a teacher, I was baffled by the sense of entitlement and grade grubbing (as Jack Black put it so eloquently in School of Rock) among some students.

The go to source on this matter is gradeinflation.com, but it's bordering on being out of date. Luckily, a major update is scheduled for March 4th. I look forward to it.

Links for 11/11/09

Arthur Peng and James Guthrie on "The Phony Funding Crisis"

If one relies on newspaper headlines for education funding information, one might conclude that America’s schools suffer from a perpetual fiscal crisis, every year perched precariously on the brink of financial ruin, never knowing whether there will be sufficient funding to continue operating…

Yet somehow… from one year to the next, schools almost always have more real revenue for each of their enrolled students. For the past hundred years, with rare and short exceptions and after controlling for inflation, public schools have had both more money and more employees per student in each succeeding year...

Russell Nieli on grade inflation.

For it was during this period -- the late 60s and early 70s -- when the universities lost their nerve as traditional sources of authority … The student consumer was now king, and the demand to eliminate low grades -- like the demand to eliminate burdensome course requirements -- proved irresistible to institutions that had lost confidence in themselves and sought above all to please their paying customers…

There has been a "Lake Wobegon" pattern in grading, Malkiel says, where every student is above average…

The anti-grade-inflation policy seemed to be working and not harming Princeton graduates in the employment and professional school arenas…

David Grant

after the president’s “pay czar” finishes mastering Wall Street pay, he might try storming America’s ivory towers.

BILL ALPERT

ON TOP OF DOUBLE-DIGIT ENROLLMENT growth, for-profit schools benefited from the generous pricing umbrella of the traditional schools. For three decades, tuition has increased by an average of more than 7% each year at public and nonprofit private universities, according to the government's National Center for Educational Statistics. By pricing themselves between the public and the non-profit colleges, the for-profits have been able to swell revenues at 20%-to-30% annual rates.

Grade Inflation and Princeton: A Report

By Richard Vedder

Of the Ivy League schools, it seems to me that Princeton has shown the most willingness to change in recent years. It decided to expand its student body by a few hundred --increasing access, a notion unheard of in the Ivies in recent times. It froze tuition levels for next fall for the first time in 40 years, although by sharply raising room and board rates, it made that innovation more symbolic than real. Most important, it has taken a tangible effort to reduce grade inflation, putting a limit on the number of "A" grades academic units can reward.

The latter was a brave move and a needed one. While the otherwise saintly Harry Lewis is partly right in saying increased grading rigor may lead students to avoid tough courses, the continued move away from distinguishing between student performance levels has reduced incentives for students to work. National data show students study embarrassingly little. When most students get "A"s in class, there is difficultly in assessing student performance, there is less effort put in by students to distinguish themselves, and we implicitly send a message that excellence is not something that needs real rewards.

A story in today's USA TODAY suggests that Princeton has had increases, not decreases, in applications as it has raised grading standards. Its graduates are not worried about getting into graduate schools or obtaining work. The public looking at grades of students realizes that an "A" at Princeton is more meaningful than an "A" at Harvard, and that a 3.5 GPA at Princeton might be the equal of, say, a 3.65 GPA at Yale or Penn. Others are still afraid to follow the Princeton example, but the evidence to date seems to suggest their fears of adverse consequences of intentional deflationary grade policies are grossly exaggerated.

What Private College Tuition Really Buys You

by Daniel L. Bennett

CCAP has been recently been blogging on the matter of grade inflation (here, here and here). While CCAP has been looking specifically at the Colleges of Education in an effort to examine the trickle down effects into our K-12 education system, we are not the only ones investigating grade inflation. Research from Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy have uncovered some interested data which helps explain what one really gets for their money when choosing to attend a selective private college over a public one. They found that:

Currently at private colleges and universities in our database, the average GPA is 3.3. At public schools, it is 3.0

Since the evidence indicates that private schools in general educate students no better than public schools...private schools are apparently conferring small but measurable advantages to their students by more generous grading. Private schools also have on average students from wealthier families, and the effect of our nation’s ad hoc grading policy is to confer unfair advantages to those with the most money.

It is perhaps easy to see why graduates from certain private schools dominate placement in top medical schools, law schools, business schools, and why certain private schools are overrepresented in Ph.D. study. They grade easier and there is a tendency for graduate schools, professional schools, and some employers to confer extra stature to those who have attended selective private schools. Also, the fact that students from private schools tend to come from wealthier homes means they can stay in school longer.

In other words, private college tuition is buying, on average, higher grades, admission to top professional and graduate programs, and a cut in line for job openings, according to Rojstaczer and Healy.

Grade Inflation Follow-up

For those of you with access to the Chronicle of Higher Education, here is an interesting article concerning grade inflation.

Higher Ed's Inflation Problem

by Andrew Gillen

In the story that spurred my previous post, there is this quote from a student:

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade... What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

Here is my take on the issue.

Higher Ed Establishment: Grade inflation is a problem, why is it that you insist on getting better and better grades?

Students: Our success is measured by our grades and our grades should reflect our hard work.

Higher Ed Establishment: But hard work is a highly imperfect measure of what you’ve actually learned.

Students: You can’t possibly judge us on how much we’ve learned. We’ve been refining our methods to appear to work very hard all through elementary, middle, and high school, and it would be unfair to change the game on us. Demonstrating effort is all we know how to do.

Higher Ed Establishment: Shouldn’t you really be focused on how much you learn instead of how hard you worked?

Students: Whatever, just give us an A.

On a completely, totally, and absolutely unrelated note, this is a quote from a paper on financial aid that I'm putting the finishing touches on:

Is it any wonder that when we measure schools based on inputs, which are costly, that costs continually rise?

Here is my take on the issue.

Society: Cost inflation is a problem, why is it that you insist on consuming more and more money?

Higher Ed Establishment: Our success is measured by our reputation, and our reputation should reflect how much money we spend building that reputation.

Society: But money spent is a highly imperfect measure of how much your students actually learn.

Higher Ed Establishment: You can’t possibly judge us on how much learning takes place. We’ve been refining our methods to appear to be improving ourselves by spending ever more money for years, and it would be unfair to change the game on us. Spending more money is all we know how to do.

Society: Shouldn’t you really be focused on how much learning takes place instead of how much money you get to spend?

Higher Ed Establishment: Whatever, just give us more money.

CCAP on Youtube: Grade Inflation

In this Youtube video, CCAP discusses grade inflation and declining student work effort at American colleges and universities.

Academic Malpractice I: Decline of Standards

By Richard Vedder

Tomorrow, I will share with you some statistics confirming what many of us long suspected --college students on average do not work very hard, write few papers, read few books, etc. Today, I wish to suggest that one reason for this is that students simply are not expected to work --they are well rewarded with good grades no matter what they do, subject to some limits of course.

As of 2001-2, the average grade point average (GPA) at a wide cross-section of American universities was well above a "B" average, with the numbers rising over time. Using campusbuddy.com, a great new web site, my Whiz Kids (especially Matt Denhart and Jonathan Robe) checked out my own university, Ohio University, which is very typical, with an overall GPA of 3.05, and where only 12 percent of grades were below a "C," while 42 percent were "A" or "A-".

But what is more startling is the variation of grades by major or school within the university. At Ohio University, 99 percent of all grades examined by the website for the Department of Elementary Education were "A"s, and there were no Bs, Cs or Ds. Except for the infrequent student who simply stops coming to class but remains registered and therefore fails, everyone gets an A. Yet in the OU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the median grade is C+, and fully 25 percent get "D" or "F" grades. Yet I would bet money the average Chemistry student has higher grades in his/her non-chemistry/non-education courses than the average Elementary Ed student. One department has zero standards, the other has rigorous academic ones. Yet there are no adverse consequences, to my knowledge, of having no standards. I suspect, indeed, students in the Mickey Mouse departments as far as grades go are unfairly rewarded with more scholarship aid, etc., that is based on student performance.

To be sure, the OU education college is a bit of an extreme, but extremely high grades are common in education schools. For example, according to campusbuddy.com, "only" 70 percent of the education college students at the University of Kentucky get "A' grades, and the average GPA for all education students is a 3.70. No one, of course, got below a "B". There is little evidence that these education colleges teach ANYTHING that gives us better teachers, and those with alternative forms of certification (e.g., not through colleges of education), those in the Teach For America program, etc., do very well relative to those with education degrees. Yet the colleges of education continue to exist, often with virtually no standards, no incentives for students to work hard, to excel, or to distinguish themselves. And we continue to subsidize them when perhaps they should be taxed out of existence on the grounds of their negative spillover effects to society.

Question to legislators: why do you fund this behavior? If state legislators gave colleges an extra $100 subsidy per undergraduate student for each 0.1 percent point average GPAs fell below 3.0 for undergraduates, I have a feeling some of the grade inflation would end. Maybe we would start to restore standards and make young scholars realize that in academe, as in the real world, rewards are tied to performance.

Ignorance is Bliss

By Richard Vedder

Although colleges are loathed to learn whether their students actually learn anything while in school, they usually do want to test and evaluate applicants and students on their knowledge --for many good reasons. Now, rather than moving to increasing the information we have about college applicants and graduates, some schools are moving to REDUCE that information, presumably thinking less is best, or ignorance is bliss.

Today I read in INSIDE HIGHER ED that Stanford is eliminating grades at its law school, going to a less informative, more cumbersome system of evaluation --with four levels of distinction. Presumably this will eliminate ranks in class. Some of the arguments were the same used during the 1970s when Flower Children and Hippie Professors argued that grades raise student anxiety, potentially hurt their self-esteem, etc. Evaluations are hurtful, so let us largely do away with them. Yale and Berkeley have done similar things.

A five grade scale with pluses and minuses provides precise ordinal rankings of student performance -- a student with a 3.706 GPA is likely to be superior in a purely academic sense to one with a 3.274 GPA. Firms looking to hire good lawyers are going to want those who excel in class (and, in some types of law, have other positive characteristics, like good acting abilities). Stanford wants to deny future employers that information. I hope some employers start shunning Stanford Law as a consequence. Some at Stanford probably take the snobbish, arrogant, complacent view that "all Stanford grads" are good so we do not need such pristine grading. Time will tell whether employers will react positively or negatively to this.

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Another development that frankly puzzles me is the abandonment of the SAT by good schools. Now Wake Forest has bit the dust, no longer requiring the test. The test is a darn good predictor of academic performance, a useful supplement to high school grades (which, in the era of grade inflation, are increasingly dubious as an indicator of performance). At mediocre schools (which Wake is not), the SAT or ACT are marvelous predictors of academic success --not perfect, not infallible, but still good. Where everyone is very bright, variations in composite scores (ignoring the writing component, as I do) from, say, 1380 to 1520 may not be as good at predicting success. Maybe Wake will expand the applicant pool --but in a good way or not? Again, I suspect there is a dimension of political correctness here. Without the SAT, schools can justify taking in members of less qualified favored groups (on the basis of race, sports talent, gender, or, God forbid, sexual preference) that otherwise would be excluded because of low test scores. Is ignorance bliss? I think not; I think these schools are making a mistake.

Schools will not provide us information on what students are learning ("value added") in college; increasingly, they will not tell us how good they are academically relative to other students. I think this is shameful, and should be the basis of removal of favored tax treatment for colleges and universities, not to mention a loss of accreditation. But accreditors have never in modern times put a major school out of business, and the Accreditation Cartel would have a fit if they did. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Links for 1/3/11

RiShawn Biddle and Jay Mathews

Mathews: I was intrigued by your argument that what happens in the classroom is NOT the most important part of improving schools. What do you think is more important, and why?

Biddle: Certainly you can't improve schools without improving what happens in classrooms. All that said, you can’t fix what happens in classrooms until you deal with the systemic problems plaguing American public education today: Low teacher quality; abysmal curricula; the failure to inform parents and let them be lead players in education decision-making; and a culture of low expectations set by teachers, administrators, parents and community leaders alike…

TAMAR LEWIN

if everybody in the class gets an A, what does an A mean?...

Princeton adopted guidelines in 2004 providing that no more than 35 percent of undergraduate grades should be A’s, a policy that remains controversial on campus…

Dartmouth transcripts include median grades, along with the number of courses in which the student exceeded, equaled or came in lower than those medians. Columbia transcripts show the percentage of students in the course who earned an A…

a study by three Cornell economists found a large increase in enrollment in courses with a median grade of A — further driving grade inflation…

JAMES WARREN

Heckman marshals ample data to suggest that better teaching, higher standards, smaller classrooms and more Internet access “have less impact than we think,”…

He urges more effectively educating children before they step into a classroom where, as Chicago teachers tell me, they often are clueless about letters, numbers and colors — and lack the attentiveness and persistence to ever catch up…

Stuart Rojstaczer & Christopher Healy

nationwide rise in grades over time of roughly 0.1 change in GPA per decade… They also may help explain why undergraduate students are increasingly disengaged from learning and why the US has difficulty filling its employment needs in engineering and technology…

The Accreditation War of 2007: The Anne Neal Appointment

By Richard Vedder

I am, by and large, on the side of Margaret Spellings and the Department of Education in the great war currently being fought in Washington over accreditation. The current system stinks, and accreditation is not being used to prod schools to demonstrate students are learning something. I do not like a lot of federal intrusion into the affairs of universities, and, indeed, want the feds to get out of the student loan business completely. But pressuring the accreditors to force the colleges to measure and report "value added" during the college experience is a good idea.

The appointment of Anne Neal to NACIQI (the "National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity) is the latest sign the Administration means business in trying to implement the Spellings Commission recommendations. Anne is a dear friend and ally, one that CCAP often works with. Ironically, I was the one who talked Charles Miller into letting her testify before the Commission. Anne is a believer in accountability, in measuring progress, and in having students be familiar with a series of general education courses including basics like American history. As head of ACTA --the Association of College Trustees and Alumni -- Anne has been indefatigable in her defense of teaching the corpus of knowledge that binds us together as a people, as well as urging trustees and alumni to be more assertive in university affairs. She also shares my opposition to grade inflation, and might push for accrediting agencies to demand grade distribution data from colleges, and to give lower marks to schools that show no interest in differentiating materially between the good and the bad, the excellent and the fair. Her appointment will drive the Higher Ed establishment crazy -- which is precisely the reason she belongs on NACIQI. The establishment has viewed accreditation as a minor annoyance, not an important instrument in assuring some quality is maintained.

Anne is bright (Harvard Law grad), opinionated, politically savvy (her husband is a congressman) and principled. All good qualifications for being on NACIQI. I see the hand of Vickie Schray, Charles Miller and Margaret Spellings in this appointment, and three cheers to all of them. It shows that they can appoint someone good outside the state of Texas.

Should We Abolish Colleges of Education?

By Richard Vedder

I believe the following stylized facts are roughly correct.

1. American K-12 students perform in a mediocre fashion on international standardized tests, and other data likewise suggest that the academic performance of American students is disappointingly modest.

2. Following from the first point, poor K-12 academic preparation is a significant reason why colleges need remedial education programs, and why they have high drop-out rates.

3. Great teaching leads to better results than mediocre teaching.

4. Most K-12 teachers have studied extensively in colleges of education.

5. Teachers who do not come from a college of education background do as least as well, and often better, than those with certification gained by taking education college courses. Programs relying on non-education-college-trained personnel like Teach for America are highly successful.

6. Standards in American colleges of education are appallingly low, and a sort of anti-knowledge, anti-intellectualism is often apparent. Typically, education students have below-average indicators of college performance (e.g., relatively low high school grades and test scores), yet tend to receive extremely high grades in their education courses. averaging A- or even higher. Research done at the center I direct (the Center for College Affordability & Productivity), took a sample of 174 public institutions with education schools and obtained grade data from campusbuddy.com. Looking at over 1.3 million grades, we found that the average GPA in education classes was 3.65, and 76 percent of students received an A- or better. Contrast that to university-wide GPAs that averaged 2.99, with 41 percent receiving A grades. (I have talked about the wider problem of university-wide grade inflation here and here).

7. The colleges of education have often fought genuine education reform that rewards teachers on the basis of student learning. They have fought to keep certification rules requiring students to take many education courses. Too often, they seem to believe that the maximization of student self-esteem is more important than the acquisition of knowledge.

To be sure, not all colleges of education fit this model, and there are some effective education professors teaching at some schools. By and large, however, colleges of education are considered vast wastelands of mediocrity at most comprehensive universities. And it certainly seems that most of the good research on learning, educational costs, etc., is being done outside education schools by psychologists, political scientists and economists.

Thus it seems to me it is a dubious proposition that undergraduate colleges of education make any sense at all. I am not, of course, suggesting that it is not worthwhile studying the process of learning, and trying to improve it. To the contrary, we do too little, not too much, research into what works in terms of improving student educational outcomes. But future teachers are better served by getting good grounding in academic subject matter, augmented by some practice in teaching under the guidance of an experienced mentor. Courses in the history of education, for example, are less useful to the future math teacher at the intermediate or secondary level than a course in advanced calculus.

State governments should consider defunding students in colleges of education, requiring future teachers to major in an academic subject, etc. There should be upper limits on the amount of work in pedagogy allowed in a bachelor's program, and requiring teachers to get a master's degree in education (a way educrats might use to preserve the education schools) likely should also be prohibited. Most top-flight schools already do not have undergraduate education schools, but this blight on true "higher education" should be discouraged at all institutions depending on taxpayer funds.

Conservatives and Liberals Unite!! An Idea All Should Endorse

By Richard Vedder

Henry Butler invited my sidekick Andy and me to a Searle Center seminar at the Northwestern Law School on Burt Weisbrod et al's fine new book, Mission and Money. More about the book and the seminar later. I found one semi-revolutionary idea was pleasing to both conservatives and liberals in attendance --a progressive federal voucher in lieu of ALL current federal forms of financial aid.

The idea is this. Pool all the federal student aid funds including loan subsidies together, and you have tens of billions in outlays. I would include tax credits in the calculation. Let us say the sum is $50 billion, about one-third of which is current Pell Grant outlays. Make the Pell Grant an explicit scholarship (the word voucher is verboten on political grounds, I guess) payable to the student, with the amount totally independent of the school chosen by the student (obviously, the money is usable only at an accredited school).

Give more of these awards than currently receive Pell Grants, maybe 8-10 million, with a peak award of, say, $5,000 or even more. Give no awards, however, to upper income students, who should be paying for their own education. Scale the remainder of the awards by adjusted gross income, maybe with some allowance for family size and number of kids in college --period. Awards could run between say $1000 and $6000. End the FAFSA form --use an income tax form checkoff allowing the administrator of the student awards access to IRS and, possibly, Social Security records. Give no money to richer kids. Put some performance standards in --the awards are good only for four years, for example. A bonus is given for being in the top one-fourth of your class (don't use a grade point average --that encourages grade inflation).

Sitting next to me at this seminar was Jim Rosenbaum, a Northwestern sociologist who, almost by definition, must be liberal politically. He loved the idea --it fits in well with liberal egalitarian concerns --target help for the poor, more than at present. Conservatives like it too --it is a voucher, supporting students and free choice more than institutions. It encourages competition and making higher education more of a market environment. It gets rid of massive administrative costs associated with the scandal ridden student loan programs. It awards excellence and punishes schools that allow students to linger around for many years. It is an idea Barack McCain or John Obama could support.

Why won't it happen soon? The private loan providers will be up in arms. The private colleges won't like kids getting as much in financial aid at public schools as at their own. In short, higher education and the financial industry will fight it. A good president will play hardball, and threaten withholding federal research funds, earmarks and other dollars if true financial aid reform does not happen. It is time to fight for the student and against the special interests.

Now, lest you think I am softening, I am outlining what I believe to be a political doable strategy that is better than what we are doing. If I had my way, we would encourage more kids to go to vocational/trade schools --and use their scholarship there --instead of conventional four year universities. I would allow vouchers to be used for intensive study courses such as Kaplan and Princeton Review offer to prepare for tests for law or business school, but in this case to prepare for examinations to earn a certificate to be, say, a master auto mechanic or computer programming specialist. And, perhaps we should rethink what the optimal length of postsecondary training is --why four years (now increasingly five or six)? Why not three? Or 3.4 years for Johnny the Brain, 4.6 for Susie the Social Butterfly, and 0.6 for Tom the Truck Driver wannabe?