Give B's a Chance

Last week, Princeton’s faculty voted to repeal the university’s 10 year-old grade deflation policy. The policy, which recommended that no more than 35 percent of students within a department receive A- grades or higher, stood in contrast to Harvard’s rather different policy, wherein the modal grade awarded is an A and the median grade awarded is A-. While we are skeptical that the benefits of Princeton’s deflationary policy outweighed the costs, we commend Princeton for attempting to implement a solution to what is a complex and, to many, serious problem.

Indeed, opinions on grade inflation are as varied as the pre-curve midterm distribution in Ec 10. Naturally, different understandings of the issue at hand inform different strategies for solving the problem. Does compression of the bell curve make it impossible to conduct meaningful comparisons of students? Is it a reflection of the “everyone gets a trophy” parenting style, where World’s Best Moms and Dads watch World’s Greatest Kids play soccer on the grass near Lake Wobegon? Some, including this newspaper, have questioned whether grade inflation is a problem at all. After all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and a C+ by any other name would still stink of lack of aptitude or effort.

Regardless of how one conceptualizes the grade inflation problem, it seems to stand at the crossroads of achievement, competitiveness, entitlement, and fear of failure. Princeton’s policy reversal should be a signal that Harvard and universities across the country should continue to experiment. The ideal system would be one in which B’s and C’s were celebrated, not stigmatized, as a sign that a student had dared to venture outside his or her comfort zone. (Or, admittedly, that they derive greater utility from some of the many other activities that can be enjoyed at college than they do from studying or writing papers. Judge not another’s utility function lest your own utility function be judged.)

We hope, going forward, that institutions of higher education find a way to sort this problem out. Faculty members at Princeton not only believed that the policy of deflation was detrimental to the collegiate environment and reduced students’ tolerance for risk in their course selections; they also believed it discouraged prospective Princetonians from applying to the university. We believe this is a signal that, as universities design and implement their own policies to try to combat inflation, they must work together if they are to achieve lasting success.