ACTA's Must-Reads
« Professional integrity in Maryland | Main | Hasta la vista to a few degrees »
The Lake Wobegon-ization of higher ed
As in Garrison Keillor's fictional utopia, the upward trend of the grades at America's colleges and universities seem to suggest that all the children are indeed above average. In an article for the Christian Science Monitor, former Duke professor Stuart Rojstaczer notes recent studies that show nearly half of college students spend more time drinking than studying. Notably, these students aren't paying for it on their transcripts. Instead, average grades have been steadily rising for about 40 years. While these might be dismal statistics for those concerned with academic rigor and integrity, Rojstaczer notes that some institutions have taken the difficult step of limiting A grades and lowering average GPAs.
ACTA has been writing about grade inflation for some time, starting with our publication Degraded Currency and continuing with our recent trustee guide Measuring Up -- which profiles a number of institutions that have tried to address grade inflation. Rojstaczer has done yeoman's work researching and documenting this phenomenon on his website GradeInflation.com, and we hope that his message will continue to get a wide hearing, especially among those in a position to do something about it.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on March 26, 2009 at March 26, 2009 10:30 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/581