ATHENS, GA.
At the end of the University of Georgia’s winter-1997 quarter, Professor Will Holmes found that only five of the 96 students in his American-history class had a grade above 90, which merited an A. He saw that several B students had done very well on the final exam; he also knew that some were working hard to earn a 3.0 grade-point average to keep their full-tuition scholarships from the state.
“I just weakened,” says Dr. Holmes. “My T.A.'s and I participated in some pretty wholesale grade inflation.”
Faced with a university-wide grade scale that lacked pluses and minuses, Dr. Holmes decided to give A’s to students with an 87.35 or above, as well as to some who had lower scores but did especially well on the final. Doing so raised the number of A’s to 23.
University of Georgia officials have insisted that no grade inflation has resulted from the state’s merit-based HOPE scholarship program, which began in 1993. It covers all or part of tuition and fees at public colleges for 128,000 Georgians, including nearly half of the 23,300 undergraduates here. But some professors say inflation is one of many byproducts of the scholarships, which require recipients to have a B average or better.
The effects of the $160-million HOPE program on Georgia colleges have been significant, and are of national importance. President Clinton has lauded the program and appropriated its name for a new federal tuition tax credit. Some student-aid specialists worry that such scholarships are replacing need-based aid, noting that many states are contemplating committing tens of millions of dollars to merit scholarships; Florida, Louisiana, and New Mexico already have done so. None of the states, however, really know what the infusion of merit aid will do to their students or their public campuses.
Georgia is beginning to find out. State officials say HOPE has given them a way, finally, to keep their best students from heading off to Virginia or Chapel Hill for college. Many public colleges in Georgia are admitting more students with good grades and test scores. HOPE is also credited with helping to increase the number of black students on public campuses, which has doubled -- to about 44,000 -- over the past decade. With outcomes like that, the public’s attachment to the scholarships has only grown.
But so have concerns about grade inflation and the learning experience at colleges and schools. For all of the talk that HOPE has brought stronger students to colleges -- the evidence is mixed -- some professors see little to distinguish today’s class from yesterday’s, except that today’s is obsessed with reaching a B average.
Above all, many observers believe, the principal beneficiary of HOPE has been the University of Georgia.
Few state institutions have become so much more competitive so quickly. The number of freshmen who graduated from high school with at least a 3.9 grade-point average rose to 853 in 1997, from 331 in 1992. Almost all in-state freshmen have received a HOPE scholarship in recent years; they have made up 85 to 90 per cent of each year’s entering class. A full grant pays for tuition and fees -- about $2,800 in 1997-98 -- plus $100 for books per quarter.
“It’s amazing to think that four or five years ago there was no program, and now we have over 10,000 students receiving $30-million,” says Ray Tripp, the university’s director of financial aid.
Known as a party school in the 1980s, the university has a pronounced academic side today. Faculty members say HOPE’s B requirement allows them to “raise the bar of expectations” a bit higher each term. Undergraduates, having had parents and teachers drill the HOPE standards into their heads in high school, take their classwork more seriously, several professors say, noting that attendance is way up.
“Students also come by at the beginning of the quarter and say, ‘I’m on HOPE, and I don’t want to lose it. What can I do?’ I’m more used to seeing students come in at the end and say, ‘What can I do to make up for a poor grade?’” says John Clark, an assistant professor of political science.
Drinking and dating and football no longer dominate the freshman experience as they once did; for many, campus life now centers around making the grade. Some professors even say, with a hint of uneasiness, that the B has become almighty.
“A concern about HOPE is that students may be less interested in learning than in what they can do to get a good grade,” says Doris Y. Kadish, chairwoman of the Romance-languages department. On the other hand, she says, “HOPE is a tremendous boost to parents and students, who know there’s a payoff if you work hard.”
The growing fixation on grades is a statewide consequence of HOPE: Many Georgians depend on the grant to afford college. Some students here choose classes only after logging onto a student-government site on the World-Wide Web, “The Key,” that shows which teachers give the most A’s and B’s. Others pull out calculators in class to determine what a test grade has just done to their average.
“I would not be able to afford living here, or maybe going here, without HOPE,” says Sara Hawkins, a freshman. She and others say they will balance their workload -- a difficult chemistry class, say, with an easier course in drama -- and consider dropping a class if they don’t earn good grades right away. From 1992 to 1996, the proportion of undergraduates who withdrew from classes in the fall semester rose from 5.5 to 7.3.
“For me and my friends, trying to keep the 3.0 is always on our minds,” says Shea Cunningham, a junior who is majoring in art.
About half of the freshmen who enter the university lose HOPE after the first year. Some regain it by bringing their average back up to 3.0 by their junior year. Many students act tactically; some put off a tough class until the summer quarter, when they are free of other academic work.
Roughly equal proportions of white and black students enter the university with the scholarship, but black freshmen are much more likely than their white classmates to lose it. About 55 per cent of white freshmen carry HOPE into their sophomore year; about 27 per cent of black freshmen do.
Bryan Roberts, a black senior, lost his scholarship this year and now works to help pay bills. “I just lost focus, and it got harder to pull in good grades,” says Mr. Roberts, who has a 2.94 average.
A classmate, Christy Nixon, who is ineligible for HOPE because she is not from Georgia, says she feels that there is “a hostile environment” for her and other black students here which may make it more difficult to keep the aid. “There’s a feeling that this is not your school,” she says, looking over at the nearby row of fraternity mansions. She calls them “plantations.”
Administrators voice concern at the disparity in who keeps HOPE, and they are at a loss to explain it. “If someone has had to work after school in high school, that may be an extra four hours they didn’t put into learning physics, and maybe that catches up with them in the freshman year,” says Dwight Douglas, vice-president for student affairs. He notes that the retention rates of white and black freshmen do not show such a large gap.
No matter what controversy or debate HOPE inspires, however, officials here love the scholarships.
It has given them a bevy of statistics to boast about. The mean high-school grade-point average of entering freshmen rose to 3.52 in 1997 from 3.33 in 1993. Fifty per cent of those admitted to the university in 1997 chose to enroll, compared with 42 per cent in 1993.
“Because of the extreme competitiveness to get into the university, people that used to be automatic admits, very good students, now have seen after several years of HOPE that there’s not even a need to apply,” says Dr. Douglas.
Many alumni complain that the entrance requirements are too high, shutting out their children. Some members of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia have also said that the flagship does not admit enough state residents. But other Georgians are proud of the new reputation of their alma mater.
“Do you want a large number of merit scholars, or do you look at educating everyone?” says Lindsay Bennett, a 1957 graduate who is active in alumni activities. “I understand the debate, but I think, above all, the mission of the university should be excellence.”
The question of whether HOPE has, in fact, increased the rigor of course work and the quality of students remains an open one. Institutional data are so mixed that even those who believe that HOPE has done wonders for the university acknowledge that students may not be as well prepared as they seem, or classes as immune to grade inflation as officials want to believe.
“We really ought to have a major study on the impact of the HOPE scholarship,” says Wyatt W. Anderson, dean of the college of arts and sciences at the university.
The higher grade-point averages of incoming freshmen have not been matched by similar increases in average scores on the SAT, which have risen and fallen erratically. So are the students really that much better than in 1993? Several faculty members are uncertain; they say the difference between grades and SAT scores might be the result of grade inflation in high school, driven by students who desperately need HOPE to go on to college. “In a lot of Georgia high schools, a B is for breathing,” says Arnold Fleischmann, an associate professor of political science.
Some of the professors who feel that freshmen aren’t significantly better are disturbed by recent grading trends at the university. The proportion of all grades given to freshmen that were A’s and B’s grew to 62.7 per cent in fall 1996, from 50.7 per cent in fall 1993. The share of C’s, D’s, and F’s fell to 26.7 per cent, from 40.3 per cent.
Two of the institutions the university views as competitors, the College of William and Mary and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had similar grading patterns in 1996. But their proportions of high grades have grown much more slowly in recent years than Georgia’s. And the two are seen as among the best public colleges in the nation.
“The administration would like to say it’s all due to improved students, but part of it is faculty knuckling under to give higher grades,” says Charles H. Keith, a professor of cell biology at Georgia and leader of the faculty senate.
“I know a faculty member who was giving explicit consideration to the fact that if his grade average was lower than the averages in similar courses, he would lose students.”
Ask professors if they have ever inflated grades, however, and most will reach for records to prove that they give as many C’s as A’s. Off the record, several say the high stakes of financial aid may have some effect on grading in general; state funds for student aid here have increased to $34.3-million, up from $1.3-million in 1992.
Grade pressure even comes from an occasional irate parent, such as one who told a foreign-language instructor, “I’m a lawyer. Now what are we going to do about this C?”
Not everyone feels the heat. William E. Barstow, a botany professor who also teaches large biology classes, says HOPE has not impugned the integrity of grading. The B’s in biology have increased lately, and the C’s have decreased, he says. “I would like to think it’s better students.”
Michael F. Adams, the university’s new president, praises HOPE for attracting more ambitious, “savvy” students, but he does not think that the B-average requirement has caused grade obsession or inflation. Students have always wanted high grades, to earn scholarships or honors, he argues. “I would think whatever grade increase there is here is probably directly attributable to the increased quality of students,” Dr. Adams says, “though I don’t know if any of us have enough data to prove that, round or square.”
Many professors say HOPE-related pressure would be relieved if they could add pluses and minuses to the A-D grade spectrum. It’s unfair that students who have an 89 receive the same B that goes to students with an 80, they say. Faculty members who see grade inflation here, along with several who do not, agree that a plus-minus system would act as a check against inflation.
“I really resent not having pluses and minuses, because it’s extremely valuable to draw distinctions between students who did superbly and ones who just made it over the line,” says Dr. Keith, the faculty-senate leader, who adds that many of his colleagues share his view.
A grading-system change would be difficult, however, because the centralized university-system office and the Board of Regents, which oversee the 34 public colleges in Georgia, tend to frown on overhauls made on just one campus.
Dr. Adams and other administrators are also skeptical of what a plus-minus system would accomplish. The president, for one, says such a change could lead to even more pressure from students on faculty members. “That system creates as many problems as it solves,” he says.
If student accomplishment is symbolic of the competitiveness of a university, however, either the grading system or HOPE itself must change for a clearer picture of achievement here to emerge, some professors say. While they favor pressing students to do better and work harder, the one-size-fits-all demands of HOPE may not be entirely positive at a university where most freshmen receive the aid.
“It may be worth having HOPE require a 2.6 or 2.7 average, and say the C is a respectable grade again,” says Dr. Holmes, the history professor. “We shouldn’t be expecting every person here to have a B average.”
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