…enter grade inflation. This site has recently touched twice on the topic of the spiraling cost of advanced education. Recently the New York Times covered something that the schools are giving back for the increased attendance cost – higher grades. Yes, grade inflation is increasing at a pretty decent clip right along with college costs.
Retroactive Inflation
The most brazen of all of these actions comes from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California. Loyola is retroactively increasing their GPAs by a full third of a point. Yes, students who attended Loyola in the last few years will be pleasantly surprised to realize their grades are now higher than they remember. Other schools in Los Angeles are also changing their curves, especially in Law School. UCLA increased their curve in 2005, and my alma mater the University of Southern California called their raise last year.
Subterfuge
Still another way schools are handling inflationary pressures on grades is moving to pass/fail type degrees. Degrees from some schools (mentioned are Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Berkeley) are purposefully confusing as to their GPAs. The article also mentions the University of Chicago Law School, which hasn’t inflated their grades but instead has a hard-to-convert 155-186 grade point scale.
- 4.33? (Charlie Goren)
In Loyola’s defense, they claim that other California schools were already on scales .333 points higher than themselves. If this job market remains weak, expect schools to come up with even more inventive ways to promote their students. To follow these creative ways, especially with Law Schools, check out the blog Above the Law.
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These kinds of crazy machinations signal a peak in education costs in my mind. The costs are already hard to justify and getting more ridiculous by the day. Many graduating students are stunned by the size of their student loans versus their starting salary, if any.