Inflation-Adjusted GPA

Neetu Arnold wrote an article for the Manhattan Institute titled A for Average: Reversing University Grade Inflation (June 2026).

« The onset of rapid grade inflation was in the 1960s (Figure 1). One theory for this unusual increase is that professors awarded higher grades to prevent students from failing out of school and being drafted into the Vietnam War.1 Another theory points to the rise of anti-elite and anti-grading movements of the 1960s, in which proponents believed that issuing grades was degrading to students and their efforts.2 A 1975 study of nearly 550 universities found that 77% had adopted some kind of grading innovation that included using Pass/Fail, eliminating Fs, or refusing to keep records of grades below C.  »

« The second wave of grade inflation occurred during the 1980…. By this time, student evaluations of professors became more prevalent and had much more serious stakes. In 1973, only 29% of colleges used student evaluations. In 1983, that share had increased to 68% of colleges, and by 1993 the figure was 94%.8 Low professor ratings could mean reduced enrollment in courses or even entire departments. In some cases, student evaluations became tied to tenure and promotions. »

« Grade inflation continues to be a persistent problem at many universities, including the most prestigious. At Harvard College, A-range grades (A’s and A-minuses) accounted for 85% of all letter grades in 2024–25, up from 62% in 2012–13. Yale University shows a similar pattern, where nearly 79% of students received A-range grades in 2022–23, up from 67% in 2010–11.11 The share of Emory College students who had a 3.5 GPA or higher went from 41.5% in 2005 to more than 70% in 2025. »

« Many students enter college without adequate K–12 academic preparation,13 which pushes universities to lower the rigor in their academic courses. A 2025 University of California, San Diego report, which found that many admitted students struggled with middle-school math, wrote: “Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared … puts significant strain on faculty who work to maintain rigorous instructional standards.” As universities admit more students who fall below college readiness standards, some departments have used these gaps to justify adopting easier grading practices in the name of equity. »

« Harvard’s own practices failed to incentivize its faculty to grade rigorously. In fact, the median GPA increased from 3.49 in 2005 to 3.83 in 2025… Non–tenure track professors feared negative student course reviews, which could harm their job security. »

« In 2003, Wellesley instituted a policy that limited class average grades in lower-level courses to be no higher than a B-plus… In 2004, Princeton University adopted a policy under which each department limited A grades to 35% for undergraduate course work and to 55% for junior and senior independent work… Both Wellesley and Princeton eventually discontinued their respective policies. The policies were unpopular with students, who said that they were at a disadvantage when applying to graduate schools or jobs because other schools were not following the same practice. »

«  Cornell took a two-pronged approach: in 1998, the university published an online report of median class grades; in 2008, it placed median class grades next to a student’s course grade on their transcripts.26 Cornell discontinued its online median grades report after a 2009 study found that availability of this information led most students—aside from the high-ability students—to take easier classes, which accelerated grade inflation. Cornell faculty used this study—along with student feedback that the median grades were leaving them at a competitive disadvantage—to eliminate median grades on transcripts in 2022. »

« Inflation-adjusted GPA = average [traditional grade + (2.7 – class median)]

Example: If a student receives an A (4.0) in a class and the median grade in that class is B (3.0), the inflation-adjusted grade for that class would be calculated in the following way: [4.0 + (2.7 – 3.0)] = 3.7. So the inflation-adjusted grade for this one class would be an A-minus. This formula repeats for each class a student takes in a term. Then the (credit-weighted) average of the inflation-adjusted course grades is taken to get the total inflation adjusted GPA for that term. »

« An important consequence of the proposed inflation-adjusted GPA formula is that the maximum grade points a student can earn in a class with a median grade of A is 2.7. Under a typical grading system, lenient classes with median grades of A are desirable to students: taking such classes all but guarantees them a high GPA. But with the inflation adjusted GPA, high-achieving students would want to avoid such classes or encourage the professors to grade more rigorously so that they have a chance to earn a 4.0 GPA. This flips the typical incentive for students on its head: students would be the ones pushing for more rigorous grading instead of professors or administrators. »

« Employers may find a student who has a high inflation-adjusted GPA to be a more attractive prospect than a student with only a high traditional GPA. »

« Finally, a beneficial side effect of this proposal would be that students who perform well in difficult classes with low course medians would experience a boost in their adjusted GPA (illustrated by Scenario 3 in the Appendix). The inflation-adjusted GPA would therefore reward students for academic risk-taking. »