Keller on Harvard's grading system

Keller at Large

At a moment when we’re grappling with the issue of what – if any – standards of academic performance should be required of public-school students, we can’t look to our most famous academic institution for guidance.

By its own account, Harvard University’s grading system has become a sorry farce, with A grades so freely distributed they have become as meaningless as an on-campus anti-Israel protest. The alleged “world’s greatest university” is just another lemming in a decades-long march off the cliff of grade inflation in both higher ed (where grade point averages rose more than 16% between 1990 and 2020) and high schools. It’s an institutional and cultural failure that undercuts the value of ridiculously-expensive college degrees, and endangers both high-performing students stuck with the same grades as lazy peers and hardworking but less-gifted students for whom a B becomes a scarlet letter of failure.

And it’s no joke. But after reading the comments of Harvard students interviewed by the Crimson about runaway grade inflation, you have to laugh.

The latest report from Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education found the problem was so bad, it was “damaging the academic culture of the College.” But that’s nothing compared to the way the study triggered one freshman, who told the student newspaper she skipped classes and spent the day “just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes. It just felt soul-crushing.”

Too bad Harvard doesn’t offer a major in drama.

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