The Currency of Academia Rises

A growing problem in today’s college world is grade inflation. Grade inflation has various effects on college students, professors, and future employers. Many people do not believe this is a problem because they do not witness it firsthand. I was one of those people as well.  However, after many articles and studies, I leaned that this was not the case.  Although some scholars argue that the problem with grade inflation is that it causes laziness in students and professors, the real issue is that it negatively impacts not only the value of college education, but also student’s emotional stability. Grade inflation decreases the value of a degree and the professionalism of student’s post-graduation which ultimately leading to greater issues later in life.

Many people think grade inflation produces laziness in today’s young adults. Since grade inflation is known to make students work less it can lead to more time for fun. This was shown in my investigation of the movie “America Pie: Beta House”. This movie focuses on the lives of the brothers in the famous Beta House fraternity. The stereotype of Greek life is all play and no work. This was exemplified in beta house showing only the partying and social aspect of college education. During this movie I noticed how it never mentioned studying or anything about academics. The lack of academics gave the idea that college is one big party and can be completed without any challenge. However, all college students know this is not the case. This movie was merely made to produce comedic relief, but an argument could be made that students in the movie don’t have to work for their grades due to grade inflation. Because grade inflation makes high grades easy to obtain students don’t have to work as hard for their grades. This leaves time to have fun and not worry about school as much as you should. Grade inflation could be an underlying reason as to why college is known for partying and goofing off.

During my inquiry into grade inflation I found the article “Sliding through Means Sliding Down” by John Harding. This article focuses on the negativity of grade inflation. Harding’s primary purpose is to inform professors, college students, and industries about the effects of grade inflation after college. Harding proposes the idea that grades are increasing because they are the “currency of academia” and just like money inflates, so do grades (Harding, 21). He states that a possible reason for grade inflation is teacher evaluations. When professors grade harshly their students tend to do worse. If students make low grades they will rate a teacher badly on evaluations. When students go to register for classes they usually use a website called “rate my professor”, this shows the average grade, ratings, and general opinions about the professor. Although this is not a reliable website, many students use the ratings of their peers to determine the professor’s ability to teach. If a professor grades hard, the students will give them bad ratings. This, in turn, will cause the professor to have a low registration rate. Harding also states that grade inflation causes college degrees to become less valuable. When students are given higher grades than they deserve, their knowledge may not be up to par. Students are just handed degrees without actually having to earn the grades to get them. This causes college degrees to become worthless. If you can’t hire someone with a degree knowing they will be successful than why wouldn’t you hire someone and just train them yourself? College degrees do not accurately show proficiency.  Just like the inflation of money causes it to become less valuable, the inflation of grades does the same thing. This article also touches on the effects of grade inflation post-college. Harding says grade inflation hurts business because employees are not as qualified as the employer thought they were. This is unfair to the employers and essentially deceives them. If you receive a degree in a specific area then you should be qualified and competent enough to do it. Grade inflation makes being an expert in your field impossible. Employers that know what they are doing boost profitability, unqualified workers do the opposite.

In “Grade Inflation: The Effect on Educational Quality and Personal Well Being”, Clifford H. Edwards also focuses on the effects of grade inflation post-graduation. However, Edwards takes a different angle by making the claim that grade inflation not only hurts student’s ability to handle struggles in the future, but also negatively affects their self-esteem. Edwards speaks from the perspective of the effects on the students. He states that because of grade inflation students can pass easily and do not know how to handle challenge. Edward’s purpose of writing this article is to allow professors, school administrators, and students to see how harmful grade inflation can really be. Edwards makes the point that colleges allow students to withdraw from challenging classes. Instead of sticking out a difficult class, colleges allow us to withdraw instead of failing. Although this is beneficial to student’s grade point average in the short term, it is hurtful to the student’s problem solving abilities in the long run. Because students can take the easy way out they do not know how to tackle a problem. This causes students to fail more often. Not being able to succeed can affect students’ self-esteem. This article opened my eyes to other issues associated with grade inflation.

In the beginning of my inquiry, I only thought about the effects of grade inflation on your career later in life. However, after reading these articles I realized that grade inflation causes many problems that can easily be overlooked. I realized that low self-esteem as a result of grade inflation is a plausible idea. I also thought in the beginning that grade inflation was not a problem faced today. However, after researching I realized that grade inflation is a real problem with many real consequences. These consequences are physical as well as emotional. Self-esteem and future career readiness are the main problems impacted by grade inflation. These problems will only continue to get worse unless grade inflation is put to a stop.

Works Cited

Harding, John T. "Sliding Through Means Sliding Down." Phi Kappa Phi Forum. 92.1 (2012). Print.

Edwards, Clifford H. "Grade Inflation: the Effects on Educational Quality and Personal Well Being." Education. 120.3 (2000). Print.