Grade Inflation's Impact on America's Education Ecosystem

Does the country's education system have an issue with grade inflation?

Grade inflation is where grades are awarded to students more liberally, resulting in an increase in average grades, although with no correlation to the increase in student achievement.

Grade point averages (GPAs) at public universities have jumped from 2.7 in the 1960s to 3.2 by 2023, according to a report released last year. Meanwhile, student effort has dropped by nearly half from 24 study hours per week in 1961 to 14 hours in 2022.

Grade inflation could just be a way of keeping students happy, enrolled and continuing to pay to the institution they've decided to get a degree from. Has this brought down the integrity of college standards though?

Educator and speaker Dr. Tyler Tarver said it's not entirely bad that weekly study hours are down, as long as students are being effective in how they use their time and are actually learning and retaining information. Most of the time, it's all about how the teacher or professor is getting their students to learn.

"I would be surprised if study hours hadn't gotten shorter because we've become so much more efficient in how we find information," he said.

However, it has become easier for students to cheat on tests or exams too. Copy and paste and ChatGPT have become useful tools for learners. It's one of the reasons why Dr. Tarver believes higher education is more behind than K-12 with their technology use and classroom standards.

"Especially when it comes to engaging students and when it comes to utilizing the tools at the students disposal," said Dr. Tarver. "A K-12 teacher is going to have more time and more interactions with their students. A higher ed teacher is going to see the students maybe three hours a week. It's important that they get up to date on technology tools."

Dr. Tarver has worked in K-12 and in higher education. He believes higher education professors aren't required to go through as much professional development as what K-12 educators do.

"Most higher institutions, those professors aren't required to do the amount of training that most K-12 teachers have to do to stay up to date with technologies and research tools," Dr. Tarver said.

If we're going to prepare students for the workforce, they're going to need to be smart overall with critical thinking skills and be well-versed in technology applications and tools. Hopefully, students aren't seeing grades that are good enough to get by but rather grades that are just and translate to what a student has actually learned.