The New York Times Economix Blog ran a nice post on Grade Inflation.
Two researchers, Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, have put together a new, comprehensive study of college grading over the decades. You can read it in the Teachers College Record .
Their analysis confirms that the share of A grades awarded has skyrocketed over the years. Take a look at the red line in the chart below, which refers to the share of grades given that are A’s:
- Don’t need to be an “A” Student to figure this out.
Today, ~ 43 percent of all letter grades given were A’s, that’s up 28 percentage points since 1960- up 12 percentage points since 1988.
This grade inflation makes it increasingly more difficult for employers to distinguish between the excellent, and mediocre students.
“But his transcript said he was an “A” Student!”
We see this grade inflation as diminishing student’s will to work on course mastery.
“Why work hard for an “A” if you can just do normal effort and get an “A” too?
Here is our advice as an experienced plant manager with hiring responsibility and as an adjunct professor teaching undergrad and graduate students:
If you want to evaluate a college grad, see what the faculty recommendations for them on their LinkedIn page have to say. The silence may be deafening.
Kalen Fitch says:
My brother and I had a discussion on evaluating and interviewing prospective candidates the other day. He has found the following statement to be true…
“Within 5 minutes I know whether or not I want to hire a candidate. I spend the next 25 minutes justifying it.”
I find this to be true with recent college grads as well. Get them on the phone and let them talk. It should be immediately obvious if they are the real deal.
Kalen Fitch
blog.pcsridgway.com