Grade inflation ravages college campuses

Just as apparent as the greenhouse effect is to everyone but President Bush, so it is apparent that grade inflation is ravaging the nation’s colleges.
At some universities, especially at elite schools like Harvard, Yale and Stanford, an A or A- is the standard grade.
Part of the reason is pandering to students, professors getting better evaluations if they give high grades. And, sadly, universities are becoming more and more consumer-oriented. Grade inflation is a violation of everything higher education should stand for: seeking “knowledge and excellence,” as Dante puts it. It certainly is not to bolster self-esteem for second-rate work.
University administrators are aware of the plague but can do little to stop it. Princeton is battling the tidal wave. For two years it has been instituting a grade deflation policy.
Concerned that 46 percent of its students were getting an A or A-, Princeton officials have been requiring all academic units to reduce that number to 35 percent. The policy is working but having scant national impact.
The journalism school at the University of Nevada, Reno, graded 619 students last spring semester. Of that number, 27.3 percent got an A and 16.3 percent A-. An incredible 43.6 percent were rated superior or near superior.
Few students in my classes are excellent or near excellent. In the semester just ended, I had 15 students in an advanced reporting class. None got an A. I had 18 students in a media law class. Just two got A’s.
Sally Echeto, journalism student coordinator, said that last spring 37.9 got either B+, B or B-. In short, an unbelievable 81.5 percent got good grades.
Again my contrasting reality. In my reporting class last fall, I had two B’s and two grades of B- (26.6 percent). In the media law class, I had one B and three with a B- (22.2 percent).
Finally, Ms. Echeto said 14.1 percent of journalism students got C’s in the spring semester. (C these days means failure.) In contrast, in my reporting class last fall I had five Cs (33.3 percent). In my media law class, 38.8 percent got C’s.
This is not to say that I begrudge giving good grades. Nothing pleases me more than to have students excel. But I refuse to lower standards.
One of my favorite students--a bright guy who reads books constantly--was doing miserably in one of my classes. I asked him how he was doing in his other classes. Oh, he replied, he will probably ace them.
Joe Crowley, former UNR president, admits stratospheric grading is a serious national problem. But: “We put our students at risk in the national competition for graduate or professional school placement and, I suppose, even for jobs” if grades are deflated.
Crowley also notes that more and more “poor kids, minority kids, women in their 30s and 40s and second career folks” are now going to college. That has been “part of the genius of American higher education, the open door at work.”
Fine. Let everyone in. But students should not be graded softly and made to feel better than they are.
Too many students seem to think they are entitled to a college degree and just coast along getting it. Not so. Not many deserve A’s. Any university worthy of its name must be elitist. It must hold to the highest standards.
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That the United States beats up and/or bullies the whole world is well-known. It is also the world’s leading cheapskate. Its embassy in London refuses to pay $1.6 million it owes for its cars entering central London. Embassies are tax exempt. But the London charge is a toll, not a tax. British diplomats pay road tolls in America.
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Writing a weekly column is hard for me. I struggle for the right word, the right phrase, the right sentence. I rewrite constantly. I strive for absolute accuracy with names, facts and quotations. Double- and triple-checking. I try to cut superfluous words, phrases and sentences.
So I wonder what writing is like for some of my favorite columnists: Molly Ivins, E.J. Dionne and Robert Scheer. Do columns just roll easily from their computers?
Red Smith, the great sports writer of yesteryear, was a bleeder at the typewriter. Writing did not come easy for him. Maybe that is why his prose sparkled.
Flaubert, great French novelist of the 19th century, was obsessed with the craft of writing, struggling over his manuscripts for hours seeking le mot juste (the exact word). Too many writers today do not have similar reverence for the language.