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But what is the outcome of this grade inflation? Students still receive the same degrees, while parents and students are happy with the higher grades. Nancy Malkiel, Dean of Princeton, says “When we give all high grades we don’t let students differentiate between ordinary work and outstanding work. We don’t motivate kids.” (Barnes 18). This, however, is hardly a concern for faculty and students. Grade inflation occurring means that students do less work and colleges can demand more money because they are pleasing their students. Ever wonder why college education is getting more and more expensive? Colleges are using the students to fund their attempts at making the college appealing to incoming or prospective students, which means more money for college staff. So everybody’s happy, right? Wrong. As college costs rise, students’ families face thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. Most people spend up to twenty years paying off the debt and accumulated interest they invested in a college degree. Is the money worth inflated grades? Students are getting more bang out of grades for their parents’ buck, but the skills they are supposed to be learning from the graded material are lacking.
It is interesting to wonder about the facial expression and potential shock a student would experience upon the realization that his or her grades had been inflated. It seems to me that most students would be satisfied, that most wouldn’t care about the fact that their grades were inflated, because the bottom line is that they have a grade-point average that pleases their parents. They happened to work just hard enough without going above and beyond. What I ask is, where is the satisfaction in that? It is obvious that there is some sort of satisfaction a student gets from manipulating their teacher to give them a higher grade. However, I think that there would be some students that would be wildly upset if they had known their grades were inflated. In courses where everyone has high grades, it is impossible for serious and diligent students to differentiate themselves from their less capable colleagues. Good students’ superior work is invisible in classes where everyone gets an ‘A’ (Felton 567). It is unfortunate that there are not more students like these, ones who have a true passion for learning and accomplishment. The trend of grade inflation seems to have begun long enough ago that now no one can stop it. “The source of the problem is our society’s desire to ensure that everyone feels good about himself or herself…Are we serving our young people well by adopting this approach [grade inflation]? As our graduates enter the workplace, they will come to understand that it’s important to recognize merit if we want to get real things accomplished” (Kersten, 1). The sad thing is, universities are students are serving the students well, because they’re giving them what they want: higher grades.