Facts about the Curbing Grade Inflation

Grade inflation occurs when students receive greater grades than they would have received if their academic talents were taken into account. In the issue of grade inflation in colleges, Professor Rojstazer’s thesis, there are many dilemmas from the views of students, colleges, and employers because grading systems are designed to satisfy students, teachers, and external parties (employers).

The gap grade inflation case is about instructors rewarding A grades in college for great student performance while rewarding other grades such as C for ordinary student performance. However, the case is much concern about giving higher grades that do not reflect the real academic performance of a student. Professor Stuart Rojstaczer from Duke University raised the issues regarding grade. The grade inflation has a basis because as per the evidence and argument made by Professor Rojstaczer, in 1969 about 25% of the students used to earn C’s but currently, C grade is awarded to about 10% of all the grades. Therefore, the students earning C grades are at risk of being considered poor performance because the percentage of students attaining A grades has risen drastically thus there is a big gap between the A grade students and C grade students.

Princeton University is one of the universities used in the case to elaborate the grade inflation. In the 1990s and 2003, the A grade percentage was 35% and 46% respective. The rise in the A grade percentage shows how the professors have become generous about A grade awarding because the research has no adequate support that students are currently brighter than in the 1990s. Therefore, Princeton University has risen concerned about grading system in the departments because limiting the A grades per class can reduce the number of students earning A’s. The ceiling system has borne fruits because the number of the students scoring A’s has reduced and thus most of the students from Princeton University attract most employers.

There are some critiques of the system applied by Princeton University. The system can be unfair to the students entering under the previous system because the system can lower their GPS; hence misinforms the graduate schools and future employers. Pressure to get grades is another factor that causes critique of the systems because students are put under pressure to acquire high grades. The system is not universal thus raises some differences among the students from Princeton University and other competing colleges.

The Princeton University grading system can be advantageous to the students from the university because employers give the priority during job placement due to the reason that their grades are regarded as legit and not inflated. The utilitarian theory applies in this case because the Princeton University an A grade awarding system is meant to hurt some parties but at last it bears great meaning to the students, universities, employers and the society at large considering the reason that those hardworking students will earn what they deserve.

Ethically Relevance about the Grades Inflation

Utilitarian theory is applicable in rewarding A grades to students because pleasing students with high grades is unethical. Students are supposed to be awarded grades they deserve due to the reason that exams are used to measure students academic abilities thus they are supposed to be marked and graded according to the students’ abilities without worry about the dilemma objection (In Levinson, & In Fay, 2016). If the grades are awarded ethically to students, the society can make better judgments about who deserves certain position after school. Inflation of grades has made the employers’ lost trust when hiring new candidates because they have no trust on candidates’ academic performances.

It is unethical for the new candidates to qualify for a job that they cannot handle efficiently due to lack of knowledge (In Levinson, & In Fay, 2016). The inadequacy of knowledge is the impact of grades inflation because students can seem to be bright based on their transcripts, but they cannot handle simple jobs that require basic concepts learned in school.

The system used by Princeton University is fair thus it can be termed as ethical because it does not please students by awarding inflated grades. The satisfying majority in society can be done by rewarding grades according to students’ capabilities thus ceiling cannot be a better option when grading students, but it is much better considering the grades inflation issue that has made education qualification values (In Levinson, & In Fay, 2016). Employers are currently giving the experience a higher percentage than academic qualification when hiring because they do not trust the grades students earn at colleges. Therefore, it is high time for the colleges to change their grading systems to win the trust of the society.

Dilemma principle should always drive lecturers and departments at larger. Dilemma principle can make a professor award a student a lower grade without considering the reaction of a student as far as the grade reflects the real ability of a student. Awarding grades based on real capabilities of the student can be termed as rigid and receive negative responses from most students, but it is a great decision that can save the current and future society in consideration to the value of education and impacts of education in entire society.

Important Ethical Decision regarding Grades Inflation

In my opinion, the first decision I will take is imposing a policy that makes every department demonstrate the rigor of their courses. Every department must report the standards that hold students in their classes and provide justifications about approaches used to distribute grades based on the set standards. Discussing the grading standards and approaches used by departments will reduce the issues where departments do not discuss grades in their courses. The policy will motivate the faculties in various departments to justify peering departments what standards they have and if they hold students to those standards.

The faculties should not be penalized for low enrolled courses. Most faculties are inflating grades to attract more enrollments because students are afraid of faculties that are rigid in awarding higher grades. The lecturers teaching courses with low enrollment have been lenient to students because they fear losing courses to teach. Therefore, if the courses with low enrolment are kept, the lecturers can be easily convinced to become rigid in awarding higher grades because they will not be afraid of losing the faculty.

Reference

In Levinson, M., & In Fay, J. (2016). Dilemmas of educational ethics: Cases and Commentaries.