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The high percentage of A grades given at Bentley could certainly signal grade inflation, but it also illustrates that the school is focused on pleasing students. The biggest factor in pleasing students is pleasing them through good grades. Students avoid teachers who are rumored to “grade hard”. Joe Castaldo, a professor at a Canadian University, describes the struggle of pleasing students: “the simple solution was to make the tests easier. Students would be happy, I would spend less time marking, and there was no risk of alarming the university administration with low grades.” (1). Teachers lower their standards in an effort to please the university and avoid attacks from students. Therefore, the quality of work is lowered, and the degree received upon graduation is worth less.
Colleges are trying to cut costs while increasing the quality of education, but how many students actually care about the “value” or “quality” of their degree? Shouldn’t it be worth just as much as their parents forked over for tuition? As it seems today, students care more about the face value of graduating and moving past college rather than the “hard” work they’ve done to reach this goal. The ASHE Higher Education Report confirms that “individual students, their families, and the society invest tremendous resources in higher education. In turn, they expect colleges and universities to maximize student learning and personal development and to advance societal well-being” (5). The parents and students both are seeking satisfaction from a college education in several areas, but the only tangible measure of this satisfaction is the grades the students receive.
Students are more like consumers than students, customers that seek to be pleased by their education rather than challenged by it. Students get their consumer mindset from the media-infused culture they were born into. From television, radio, magazines – the message is the same. The ASHE Higher Education Report affirms that shifts in the social, cultural, and political environments can affect the overall pattern of changes in college grades (45). The media message teaches them more about life than perhaps do the teachers at universities: never be satisfied. There is something that could always be better than what you have, so do anything you can to get it. Students can exercise this control when choosing a particular college, and do not hesitate to hem and haw over the advantages and disadvantages of particular institutions. They are only consumers, after all. Once they arrive and settle in at whichever college or university they do choose, many students are hesitant to transfer. Instead, students manipulate their environment so as to gain the best advantage, to get what is “better”.