Professor Compiles GPA Database to Confront Grade Inflation

Stuart Rojstaczer, a professor of environmental science at Duke University, hasn’t given a student a C in more than two years. He admits he is part of a nationwide problem of grade inflation, but he says colleges must work together to deal with the issue.

As a step in that direction, Mr. Rojstaczer has compiled a database of average grade-point averages over time at various four-year colleges and placed the information on his Web site, http://gradeinflation.com. So far, he has data from 34 colleges, with some statistics going as far back as the 1960s.

Mr. Rojstaczer says he has found grade inflation at all types of institutions -- large and small, public and private. Less-selective colleges tend to report lower average GPA’s than more-selective institutions, “but they’re all rising,” he says. “Every school that I can find that has data available shows grade inflation.”

The numbers contradict those who blame affirmative action for grade inflation, he says. In fact, grade inflation actually waned a bit at many institutions during the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when the numbers of minority students at those colleges were increasing.

Mr. Rojstaczer admits there are no easy solutions.

“We could simply create a new grade, the ‘double A’ or the 'über A,’” he says with a laugh, “and we could reserve that for exceptional performance.”

http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 49, Issue 23, Page A37