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Harvard voting on limiting "A" grades for undergrad students to curb grade inflation 92%
5/13/2026, 12:34:40 AM
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Making the grade could get harder at Harvard.
University faculty is voting on potentially limiting the amount of A's professors can give students in an attempt to curb rising grade inflation.
The education department defines grade inflation as the trend of awarding higher academic grades over time for the same or lower levels of student performance rather than increased achievement.
Internal data shows this is what's happening at Harvard.
According to a university report, A's accounted for 60% of the grades awarded to Harvard undergraduate students in 2025.
That's up from 40% in 2015 and just 24% in 2005.
The proposal currently being voted on would limit A grades in Harvard undergrad courses to just 20% of students per class plus four additional A's.
The results of the vote are expected on May 20th.
Mike Deehan joins us now.
He's a reporter for Axios Boston.
So, some faculty members are expressing concerns.
Some are saying this is needed.
What are the arguments on both sides?
Yeah, there's really the the foreign against is to start off with why they want it.
The faculty have really been trying to grapple with this problem for decades as they've seen it go up and up and up.
About 20 years ago, only 25% of the graduating class had A's.
Like you said, now it's upwards of 60%.
But they they are afraid though to do it individually.
They would say that would almost be a race to the bottom or that folks, you know, it would start to do course shopping to get away from the harder classes if individual professors did it.
Therefore, they need a university-wide cap.
That's what this program
what they're voting on right now.
The people against it are well, the students and people who expected to have maybe an easier ride at an elite university.
One poll said about 85% of students oppose it.
What they're concerned about is kind of getting too too competitive within their own class.
If only 20% of the class can get that A, you're not incentivized to help out the student who might not understand a concept or becoming in a little bit behind you.
So, they're describing it as almost like a Hunger Games where they'll be just way too competitive in their own classes where there used to being quite collegial.
If Harvard does adopt this, what does that mean for other colleges and universities?
Yeah, there could be a huge impact.
You know, as go as Harvard goes, as goes,
you know, higher ed in general in a lot of ways. And smaller schools are also kind of too afraid to take a step in this direction to curb the grade inflation.
Smaller schools that aren't in the financial position that Harvard is in fear losing out that kind of customer satisfaction or student satisfaction element where it becomes known, "Oh, it's going to be hard to get that 4.0 if you come here."
However, the faculty wants to keep the integrity of the education.
They want it to be hard to get that 4.0.
You know, Princeton tried something similar about 10 years ago.
They actually scrapped the system because a lot of students said that it hurt their job prospects because if they were going from you know, 3.8 to a 3.5, they didn't look as good next to students from other elite universities.
Mike D'Angelo, thank you.
You're welcome.
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