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Comment by strikelaserclaw | Hacker News Reader

If so many teachers feel that there is grade inflation, why don't they mark their students harder or give tougher exams?

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The problem is such behavior is very heavily disincentivized. I am not sure what the main factor at Harvard is but at public schools the funding of the university depends most heavily on retention. At our university, we are penalized (both in salary and other ways) for students that get Ds and Fs as well as students who withdraw(with no penalty for the student!) from the class. In addition, student evaluations play a huge role in this process and the easiest way to get a good evaluation is to give easy grades. Guess what kind of grading policy this promotes...

By the way, the reason retention, as opposed to the quality is valued is also simple. The ranking of the state 'in education' is measured by the number of diplomas given out by the institutions in the state. So more diplomas---better education ratings of the state. Thus encouraging faculty to pass students is a rational strategy. I am surprised we are not just giving students all As without any tests whatsoever. Would make my life so much easier. For a while ...

It's hard to blame any one piece of the system for inflating grades - everyone "wins" short term, and that's all this country cares about, from top to bottom. Students get their piece of paper so they can have at least a not-hopeless life, schools get their way overpriced tuition, administrators get their raises, companies get to pretend they hire smart people, etc. Governments know everyone wants their kid to go to college, so they make it easier to get people degrees.

If college continues to be a requirement for most of the basic jobs people receive then this will continue. Most of the workforce doesn't need a college degree. The things they learn in college they will never, ever use, and most of the jobs don't actually require critical thinking like is constantly waved about whenever these conversations come up.

Well put. Grade inflation is one of those emerging behaviors that is reinforced by the system as a whole as opposed to individual players. I think one major problem is we equate education with 'college education' which is probably quite harmful.

I teach at a community college. We’ve had declining enrollment for 10 years or so. I need a job and these days it’s easy to acquire a reputation and easy to look up someone’s reputation. Retention of students is very important since it lowers the cost of client acquisition to have a student body that doesn’t drop out. All of these factors have led to me, more or less, passing everyone who takes the final exam. A person has to actively try to fail my classes now.

Student evaluations are part of how faculty retention/promotion are determined. Evaluations correlate most strongly to the student's final grade.

I don't its not so much, these students are the elite of elite from around the world (academically). How hard can you make something before it starts to become contradictory to actual learning.

There are two types of students at Harvard:

- The elite of the elite, intellectually

- The elite of the elite, socially

A bit over 40% of white kids admitted to Harvard are ALDC admits: legacy, donors, etc. Folks like George W Bush (Yale) look smart by association with the intellectual elite, while smart kids gain access to networks to money and power.

It's a good scheme for everyone involved.

(Note: I do have a lot of insider knowledge about Harvard, specifically, but I'm only citing public information)

The 40% number can be a bit misleading because most are not George Bush types. In the 21st century, they mostly tend to be smart and ambitious students who are children of Ivy league educated professionals. These kids have been raised in an environment that prioritizes achievement and professional success.

Source: Anecdotal experience from the legacies I met during college. I don't have hard numbers to back me up, but you can look at the 25th percentile SAT scores and they aren't too low.

> ambitious students who are children of Ivy league educated professionals

This describes Bush to a t. I left out the smart part, but I'm not convinced that W is some sort of idiot.

> I'm not convinced that W is some sort of idiot.

His Presidency took care of that for me

Having worked with people in positions high positions, it's very hard to tell:

- an idiot from someone pretending to be an idiot (e.g. for likeability)

- someone smart from someone pretending to be smart, by virtue of a high-performance team behind them prepping them

It's showbiz.

He was on display for 8 years. Some truth leaked out.

The teachers are often rated on how well their students do, so they're incentivized to make sure they do "well" and since they control how "well" is measured you have a conflict of interest.

Combined with actually trying to fail someone often getting overturned (even my college 20 years ago famously had a "hard grader" who would often get her fails overturned), you get grade inflation.

They don't really care. A professors first priority is to do research, second priority is to teach, and last priority is to catch cheaters.

>A professors first priority is to do research, second priority is to teach, and last priority is to catch cheaters.

1. Make a reputation

2. Make Money (more reputation more money)

3. Teach (if they have to)

At research universities perhaps, but at liberal arts colleges (not a liberal arts program within a big university - that's different) professors actually are there for the teaching.

The modern Ivy League campus is a popularity contest amongst professors. Universities are filled with a growing cadre of administrators, and the administrators focus on appeasing student complaints, always taking the side of students against faculty.

Professors are afraid of upsetting students, or being called bigots if a person in some protected identity group gets a bad grade and complains about bias. This is an inevitable consequence of campus culture having a strong belief in guilt-by-accusation.

This is absolutely not why. There is no incentive for universities to tell employers what they think of the students attending them, and the intercollegiate talent transfer is 99% recommendations and research experience. Students don't want it, professors don't care, and the general public doesn't pay them to. Universities make their money from students and research, not from employers hoping for them to report statistics on the people attending. It is only their accreditation process which cares, and it doesn't care very much.

I think you just want your story to be true, honestly.

Someone, somewhere, just called out bingo.

Do you have any data to back up the various claims in this comment?

A misstep -- amongst many in this comment -- is that you're implying that 82% of the graduating class is of a protected identity group. Is that true?

82%? Of course not.

GPA inflation isn't caused by helping the students who don't need it. It's about coddling those who can't get good grades without help.

This is the argument Professor Mansfield at Harvard uses (the bigot part). Inspiration from him or just coincidence?

It's a collective action problem

If they act as an individual, they're not solving the problem in any meaningful way, they're just screwing over their own students.

> If so many teachers feel that there is grade inflation, why don't they mark their students harder or give tougher exams?

Money.

If you fail a student, they will take their tuition money to a school that does not fail them.

Universities are as corrupt as any church, bank, or local HOA.

And put the future of growing Harvard’s endowment at risk?! Besides, do you really want a US Senator or a Fortune 500 CEO calling you up to scream at you and make your life hell, or do you just want to get back to your research?

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