The Outstater
Grades: All Rhinestones Now
“Personally, I liked working for the university. They gave us money and facilities. We didn’t have to produce anything. You’ve never been out of college. You don’t know what it’s like out there. I’ve worked in the private sector — they expect results.” — Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) in the 1984 movie “Ghostbusters.”
A UNIVERSITY, as any institution, is justified by its product and function, that is, the service it provides society. You might assume measuring that would be pretty straightforward. For universities assign actual, you know, grades.
You would assume wrong. Grades these past two decades have become relatively worthless as a measure of academic achievement, the supposed product of Indiana’s seven university systems (with operating expenditures totaling more than $2 billion annually).
The late Norman Van Cott, an adjunct scholar of this foundation, sounded the alarm back in 2011 with an article for us, “Too Many Rhinestones.” He framed the problem this way:
“Colleges and universities routinely produce lots of things, including evidence about their students’ accomplishments and credentials. Students’ athletic achievements, for example, are reported with fanfare and detail. The measuring rods for athletic achievements don’t change over time– yards per rushing attempt in football means the same thing today as in previous years. But what if the number of inches per yard on football fields were falling at an unknown rate? That is, suppose that yards were getting ‘shorter.’ Yards per rushing attempt would be rising, but the statistic would have diminished information value, particularly for making comparisons across time. Fortunately, a yard is still a yard in college football, but the same cannot be said for course grades as a measure of academic achievement.”
Despite strenuous efforts by Dr. Van Cott, Dr. James McClure, Dr. Clarence Deitsch and other adjunct scholars, the warnings were dismissed. These warnings included repeated expert testimony and data showing ongoing grade inflation.
In addition to a series of articles in The Indiana Policy Review (here and here), the Muncie Star Press and the student newspaper carried feature stories based on Van Cott’s work. Other newspapers around the state ran the article as an op-ed. But Ball State University (the example that Dr. Van Cott employed) initially denied that grade inflation was occurring. Even an inquiry by then state Sen. Jim Banks fell on deaf ears.
It would be inaccurate, however, to say the administration did nothing. Rather, you could say it did nothing substantive. There were the usual flak-catchers sent out to calm the waters and assure the public that all was well. An official task force was assigned and a report was commissioned, one that we described as “unfortunate” and dismissive of the evidence produced. The administration’s ultimate position was that it was up to individual professors to “maintain academic rigor.”
Whatever, almost 15 years later there is a new report, one more difficult to sweep under the rug of an Ivory Tower. It is “The Great Campus Charade” in the most recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The authors’ conclusion: “Students are learning less, studying less and skipping class more — yet their grades go up and up.”
The survey of eight flagship universities found that since 1990 average study time has fallen 40 percent while in 1980 only 15 percent of grades were A’s now it’s 47 percent.
And none of this takes into account inflated grades in the social sciences where the mere acceptance of identity politics, social-justice jiggery-pokery or Marxist fantasies constitutes “A” work.
“Grade inflation is a difficult problem decades in the making,” the Chronicle authors warn, “But by failing to act, universities risk eroding one of their most important assets: the credibility of their own credentials.”
Why would professors allow this? Well, it’s easier than sorting out which students did the reading and which didn’t. But why would administrations allow this? Well, they would prefer to be judged by intentions rather than results, especially when billions of dollars are at stake. But why would we allow this? Well, that’s a hard question. —tcl
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