In an era of widespread grade inflation and soaring tuition, universities face a critical question: Are they institutions of learning or mere diploma mills? In the late 1990s, Cornell began a two-pronged experiment to counteract the detrimental effects of grade inflation on learning. While compositional grade inflation may undermine the credibility of every Cornell student’s raw GPA, including median course grades on the registrar’s website ensures that this impact is distributed equally among all students. Thus, while Cornell combats grade inflation through more effective strategies, the unfair advantages of grade inflation are minimized by grade transparency. The context-setting median grade decreases the risk to students of enrolling in challenging low-median courses, by tempering the harm caused by a lower grade.

Source: Daily Sun January 30, 2024 11:29 UTC