Curbing Grade Inflation Isn’t Enough To Salvage General Education

General Education: The apple of the Harvard administration’s eye, but the program the student body neglects.

Gen Eds have long been criticized as watered-down, unrigorous requirements that students have to get out of the way. Administrators have repeatedly tweaked the program, most recently by phasing out the Gen Ed pass-fail option starting with the Class of 2029, but students still flock to “gems” — courses known for easy material and lenient grading.

Now, the Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh has recently released a scathing report on grade inflation at the College. The report offers pathways to recenter academics but doesn’t address a more fundamental problem. Gen Eds are broken not merely because the grading scale is misaligned, but because the course model gives students no incentive to engage.

Many students view Gen Eds as a chore. Who can blame them? Smaller courses tailored to a student’s passions — not the arbitrary, hyperspecific topics that Gen Eds center on — will almost always take priority. Gen Eds simply don’t offer the same personalized attention. The only reason most of us take them is because we have to.

Claybaugh’s report doesn’t solve this dilemma. In fact, one proposed solution — introducing the A+ — may exacerbate the incentive problem. Competition would be magnified without the motivation to boot; students would be even less inspired to take Gen Eds out of curiosity. Why invest more into a Gen Ed when the subject material is still of little interest?

Moreover, even if Claybaugh’s favored solutions were implemented, Gen Ed “gems” would still linger. While grade standardization would push the needle some, Q-reports and word of mouth will always enable Harvard students to locate relatively easy classes. It’s a vicious cycle that can’t be broken by the current proposals.

Further, the rigor of Gen Eds is often diluted due to the wide range of students. It’s hard to hold first-term freshmen to the same standard as seniors. Gen Eds can’t be consistently challenging while enrolling students of all levels; Harvard can’t have it both ways.

Instead of placing a band-aid on a schoolwide academic problem, Harvard must address the core issue of the General Education system — students just aren’t that interested. No amount of grade reform will fix that.

Instead, Harvard needs a more radical reform.

Gen Eds should be abolished and replaced with expanded divisional distribution requirements. Undergraduates would be able to fulfill requisites while taking classes in specific, personally appealing subjects. Gone would be the days of watered-down, giant Gen Ed lectures; students would have access to smaller, higher-level courses where everyone actually wants to be there.

These new divisional distribution requirements would likely contain harder courses. But if students are excited about their requirements, the problem of “gems” goes away. Students, by and large, would welcome more rigorous classes over lackluster Gen Eds if the former had more personal appeal.

Would some people still gravitate toward easier options? Sure, but easy has a different meaning in a mid-level departmental course compared to a Gen Ed built to accommodate the entire College.

It’s true that many have tried and failed to reform Gen Eds before. And some argue that Gen Eds are core to Harvard’s liberal arts and sciences education. But as it stands, the goals of the Gen Ed curriculum are not being accomplished.

If Harvard’s persistent Gen Ed issue has taught us anything, it’s that more drastic action is needed — and not in the form of simply curbing grade inflation. It’s time to stop patching up the Gen Ed system and rebuild it from the bottom up.

Kai I. Russell ’29, a Crimson Editorial comper, lives in Wigglesworth Hall.