Tim Harford's solution to grade inflation

From the Financial Times, 3/20:

The obvious solution to grade distortion is to ration grades so that no matter whether standards are high or low, only the better students can receive the top grades. Unfortunately, like any competitive system, such policies can create ill-feeling towards high-flyers, and even sabotage.

If grade rationing is unacceptable, perhaps grade distortion should be replaced with true grade inflation, freeing grades from the worldly confines of a maximum 100 per cent or A*.

Comments

[Chris Caron]

This is germaine: Stuart Rojstaczer is a retired Duke professor who has a particular fondness for NC university grade inflation.

"But it's also interesting to look at the actual GPAs of these schools. At the top of the heap grade-wise, you have Duke, which has for at least 40 years graded about 0.2 higher than UNC-Chapel Hill. The gap widens and narrows slightly over those 40 years, but it's persistent. Right now it's narrowing and Duke's GPA is 3.4 while UNC's is in comparison a meek 3.2. Those are typical numbers for elite schools and flagship state schools, respectively, across the country.

Below UNC-Chapel Hill, historically you have North Carolina schools with harsher grading. N.C. State tends to draw the techie/engineering types and, like at most tech schools, GPAs are low.

N.C. State's grading, about an average 2.9 GPA, is actually very similar to other state tech schools like Purdue and Georgia Tech. Nerds apparently don't cry when they get B's."

http://fortyquestions.blogspot.com/2009/02/grade-inflation-update-part-10.html