Education in America has Become a Snare and A Racket, Part VI

By Rich Kozlovich

On April 1, 2020 Richard K. Vedder published the article,  Make American Colleges Grade Again!, saying: 

"While grade inflation is slightly less substantial at less selective admissions schools attended by the bulk of American college students, it is even a bigger problem there, especially for the best and brightest of their students. I have taught or attended several highly selective universities and liberal arts colleges, and my own experience is that the very best (top one or two %) of students at my mid-quality state school are as good as the average student attending highly selective schools like Harvard or Yale—and generally better than Harvard and Yale slackers getting 3.5 grade point averages without doing much work. Yet these very high quality individuals at schools like mine are hurt by grade inflation—4.0 GPA students are numerous—too many for the best to stand out to graduate schools and top-flight employers doing hiring." 

"But the biggest problem is that grade inflation is probably the largest single reason that today’s students on average spend more time partying than studying, reading, writing papers, etc............This leads to disappointment and worse among employers, generating high “underemployment” of recent college grads.

He goes on to note this trend of grade inflation began in 1970, and this has grown because lazy professors inflate grades to buy popularity with there students, and to be  "meaningful", whatever that means.   As a result, we have to ask:  Is there a trend among employers to shun students from these elite universities like Harvard, due to their lack of real standards?  It seems so, and appropriately so.

The first thing that needs to be done is eliminate the Department of Education and then demand the seven regional accrediting agencies agree on a standard for all universities, and if they don't - eliminate them and start over.

The author's final comment.  "By making American colleges grade again, we can make American college students work again as well." And I agree!

 Please view my complete file on