In the past few years, the media stories about grade inflation
in universities focused mostly on Stanford and Ivy League schools.
But grade inflation is just as prevalent at public universities,
and even more destructive.
An article in the June 15, 1994 issue of The Chronicle of Higher
Educationdiscussed a report on grade inflation at public universities
in Tennessee.According to the article, John E. Stone, a professor
of educational psychologyat East Tennessee State University, concluded
that "at least 15 percent of Tennessee graduates would not
have met the minimum academic standards of the 1960's." Professor
Stone blamed the grade inflation in part on university administrators
who wanted to enroll more students to obtain more state funds.
To a great extent, public universities are funded by legislatures
according to the number of students that they enroll. If a university
has more students, it can usually get more state funds.
Roy S. Nicks, the president of East Tennessee State University,
responded to Professor Stone's report by saying that having more
college students is not "antithetical to the public interest."
That is far from true.
If enrollments at public universities are artificially increased,
then other important public needs may not be met, because public
universities compete with other state agencies for funding. If
public universities get more money, then there is less money for
reducing crime, for improving the prenatal care of unwed teenagers,
for reducing child and spousal abuse, for improving education
in primary and secondary schools, for meeting the needs of state
health services, for funding services for the blind and disabled,
for limiting the spread of AIDS, and for other important public
services. Also, if public universities unfairly get more students--and
thus more money--because of grade inflation, then taxes are unnecessarily
high.
Thus inflating grades to enroll more students in public universities
ismost certainly "antithetical to the public interest."
But the public loses in other ways from grade inflation. If an
unqualified student can get a high grade as easily as an intelligent,
hard-working student, then grades mean nothing. Meaningless grades
are costly in many ways:
--Hiring new employees is more expensive, because companies don't know if someone with a high G.P.A. is smart or stupid. Thus companies have to spend more time testing and interviewing prospective employees. Companies also have to spend more money educating employees who should have been educated in public schools and universities.
--Bright, hard-working students get demoralized if any lazy, badly- prepared student can get a high grade.
--The public loses faith in higher education and resists investing more tax money in education.
--Good students have to spend more time, money, and energy going to school to get higher degrees to distinguish themselves from the poor students who also get degrees. This, by the way, is one reason why there are so many Master's and Ph.D. degree programs.
--Many students will not work as hard to expand their abilities, they will not develop their capacities to innovate (which any nation needs to compete in the global marketplace), and they will not learn to be as flexible and imaginative to cope with constantly changing conditions.
Those are some of the ways that the public loses because of grade inflation. But who profits? The faculty and administrators who work at public universities.
Some faculty do not want to work hard at teaching, and one way to be a lazy instructor and get higher student evaluations is to bribe students with inflated grades. Some faculty teaching freshman and sophomore level classes inflate grades to entice students to major in the faculty member's area of specialty. More students majoring in a specialty mean that faculty in that area have more secure jobs and more power in the university.
Faculty also inflate grades because they do not like stress.That is, if faculty do not inflate grades, some students will hassle them in class, give them low evaluations at the end of the term, defame them, and even threaten their lives. One of my former students, who was getting low grades, twice threatened to run me down with his car. He got a low grade anyway, and-for the moment--I am still here.
Many administrators and faculty are disgusted with grade inflation, but they won't speak up in public about it because of fear. Administrators and faculty are afraid of being slandered or sanctioned. Some faculty will lie at the drop of a hat and defame or harass administrators or other faculty. I heard one professor, a department chair, boast that he lied any time he wanted to. Another professor, a committee chairperson, called me on the phone once and told me that I had to come to a meeting and support her position, or else, as she said, "I'll say anything I want to say about you." At a later meeting, she carried out her threat and slandered me.
Faculty or administrators who blow the whistle on grade inflation (or anything else) can be sanctioned by other faculty or administrators who invent new rules or interpret existing rules self-indulgently to harass the whistle blower. Rules can be invented or twisted to block whistle blowers from promotion, tenure, pay raises, course release time, grant money, travel money, and other benefits. Little can be done about such lies and sanctions because they are hard to prove. Also, most faculty in public universities have tenured sinecures in geographical monopoly markets. That is, they are hard to fire, they don't necessarily have to work hard (though most of them do), and no one in the local area is competing with them for their students. (Most senior administrators also have tenure.)
Administrators and faculty are also afraid of public reactions to grade inflation. They don't want the public to know that there is little academic accountability in public universities and that the academic standards can be extremely low. If taxpayers find out about these things (which is what happens when administrators and faculty complain about grade inflation),then there is pressure to raise standards. Raising standards is difficult because it takes a lot of time and money, and because many faculty won't cooperate (high standards mean more work and pressure, among other things),and tenured faculty cannot be easily fired.
Administrators and faculty at public universities are also afraid of the competition. There are probably too many state universities, and certainly too many unqualified students in state universities. Because of these excesses, state universities compete against each other and against other state agencies for funds. Administrators must struggle constantly to find more money or to manage better the resources that they already have. (That, by the way, is why most university administrators today act as accountants, fund raisers, and public relations managers.) Because of the intense competition for funds, if administrators or faculty at one state university admit to inflating grades (or inflating degrees) they can lose ground against other universities or state agencies.
Finally, faculty and administrators have little incentive to complain publicly about grade inflation. Students certainly do not pressure administrators or faculty to speak out against grade inflation. Students want the prestige and increased income that come with getting a college degree. Thus they will not pressure administrators or faculty to minimize grade inflation because responsible grading policies make it harder for students to earn a degree, and they diminish weak students' chances of getting a degree at all. Also, if fewer students earn degrees, then public universities cannot ask legislatures for more funding and salary increases.
In short, then, faculty and administrators profit from grade inflation at public universities, and the public and commercial sector pay. People with lower incomes pay the most because they suffer the most from the fewer state services that are available to them. Grade inflation keeps poor people--and poor states--poor.