Dear Commons Community,

A brief report on grade inflation in undergraduate programs in American colleges and universities was just made available in the free online version of the Teachers College Record.   Key findings include:

1.      Records of average grades show that since the 1960s, grading has evolved in an ad hoc way into identifiable patterns at the national level.

2.      The mean grade point average of a school is highly dependent on the average quality of its student body and whether it is public or private.

3.      Relative to other schools, public-commuter and engineering schools grade harshly.

4.      Superimposed on these trends is a nationwide rise in grades over time of roughly 0.1 change in GPA per decade.

The authors also comment that the data might indicate why the US has difficulty filling its employment needs in engineering and technology.    This report is based on grades from over 160 colleges and universities in the United States with a combined enrollment of over 2,000,000 students.The authors have also created a website where more details about grading in American higher education can be found.

Tony