There may be problems at Australian universities, but this isn’t one of them.
Two critics of grade inflation have published a new analysis finding that the most common grade at four-year colleges and universities is the A (43% of all grades) — and that Ds and Fs are few and far between.
The full table of data showing the grade distribution across the American higher education system is shown in the story.
I cannot personally believe any academic system can operate in this way so find it almost impossible to believe. Employers and graduate schools must know how to get past these kinds of figures but if it then becomes personal evaluations, then the system is even further corrupted. An examination system with all its deficiencies is still the fairest way to judge students.
Via Instapundit
It’s nothing to worry about.
Thanks to years of cracked education, easy credit, healthy fast food options and a mixture of fundamentalist religion, conspiracy theories and video-clip culture, America has produced its finest generation ever.
43%. All ‘a’s they must be really smart.
Adrien
17 Jul 11 at 4:35 pm
Added in the table.
Sinclair Davidson
17 Jul 11 at 4:39 pm
Must be bloody good lecturers over there.
Infidel Tiger
17 Jul 11 at 4:41 pm
So I guess standardising scores doesn’t happen anymore.
Biota
17 Jul 11 at 5:01 pm
I know at my uni, La Trobe, the failure rate of a lot of subjects is 20-30%. Americans only have 3-5% failures. Wow.
Fred
17 Jul 11 at 5:09 pm
Should not the frequency distribution be bell-shaped? These look like highly skewed distributions – must be outcome based policies.
Louis Hissink
17 Jul 11 at 5:34 pm
This data is definitely accurate based on my experience.
But I’m not sure why you think it’s not happening in Australia. We’re getting a chronic case of grade inflation as well. How many students fail these days?
daddy dave
17 Jul 11 at 6:51 pm
Incidentally, in the US a D is almost as bad as a fail, because it can jeopardise the student’s financing arrangements, and frequently you can’t do further subjects if the D is for a pre-requisite.
daddy dave
17 Jul 11 at 6:53 pm
So to be clear, does this mean that either:
1. Lecturers are fudging exam results
2. exams are too easy
3. results are standardised, but the peak of the curve has been deliberately skewed to the upper end
4. there are no exams, or exams are not critical to the end result, and students only need to leave an apple on the lecturer’s desk to get an A?
entropy
17 Jul 11 at 7:26 pm
a combination of (2) and (3).
It’s happening here too, though not quite to the same extent.
What this means in the end is that employers devalue degrees, and the only degrees worth having will be those that carry credentials (ie you’re not allowed to work in the industry without it).
daddy dave
17 Jul 11 at 8:07 pm
My kid attended college in the US last semester and she found it incredibly interesting but much more hard going that here…. same course.
I found it funny though how she received like 104% of a coupla essays. How on earth do you score 104 for anything?
JC
17 Jul 11 at 8:10 pm
JC,
Perhaps it is 100% for the essay, but you get a bonus 5% for spelling your name right. Your kid doesn’t have an ‘r’ in their name that is included in spelling, but not enunciated enough for the American ear?
Or perhaps the tutor can’t spell.
Aqualung
17 Jul 11 at 8:32 pm
I have Australian fail rates here.
Andrew Norton
17 Jul 11 at 8:40 pm
Aqualung…
yes , it’s bonus points of course. But really no one should get 100% for an essay.
JC
17 Jul 11 at 8:42 pm
Thanks Andrew. So basically – if you combine D’s and F’s for the Americans, then our figures are in the same ballpark.
daddy dave
17 Jul 11 at 9:20 pm
[...] seems in line with my own anecdotal experience at US universities. (Via Steve Kates.) I leave root causes for the discussion thread. Contemporary data indicate that, on average across [...]
Grade Inflation « Organizations and Markets
18 Jul 11 at 1:15 am
The point is the top. Most Australian universities mark on a curve and even in ones that don’t, like UQ, HDs are rare. It is common in the US for people to graduate with 4.0 GPAs. GPAs lower than 3.5 are considered problematic. Whereas I don’t think a single person in my degree got a perfect 7, and only a hand full of people got honours I, i.e 6.2+.
AJ
18 Jul 11 at 3:25 am
AJ is right. It’s very difficult to get an HD, or a GPA higher than 6.2 (which gets you a First), at least at UQ. There are lots of 2.2s and Pass degrees, however. In the UK, you get a different distribution: it’s even harder to get a First, but no-one gets a Pass (called a ‘Third’ over here). 2.2 is problematic, and often means good graduate programs are closed to you. 2.1 is what employers tend to look for.
An aside: while at Oxford, I did some tutoring. Some of the students I taught were from a noted American university with which we had an exchange. We (those tutoring among the US contingent) were all warned that we would have students in our offices in tears if they got anything less than an A-. Problem was, most of them were the equivalent of an Oxford ‘C’, which is a decent grade (‘credit’ would be the Australian equivalent). Their expectations led to no end of difficulties.
British marks (in the Russell Group, at least) are very hard to figure out, however. I have won two academic prizes (one at Oxford, one at Edinburgh) with results in the low to mid 70s. The Oxford paper in particular was one of the best I’ve ever written. I don’t see what was gained by awarding it a ’75′.
skepticlawyer
18 Jul 11 at 4:27 am
I once failed an American exchange students…
Sinclair Davidson
18 Jul 11 at 7:55 am
“Most Australian universities mark on a curve and even in ones that don’t, like UQ, HDs are rare”
This is very context dependent. I have a good idea of what the 4th year overall marks are from universities in Aus in my area, and there are some that give essentially all of their students HDs (i.e., 1st class Honors). I doubt any give much less than 30% HDs. Things are certain to inflate more also — the problem now is the rules for government scholarships for postgraduate stuff now even taken into account 2nd year marks, so if you don’t give high marks out you are penalizing your students compared to those at other universities. No-one wants to do this.
conrad
18 Jul 11 at 8:05 am
I wonder how much of this is driven by not wanting to fail too large a proportion of students from “disadvantaged backgrounds”?
New Gold Dream
18 Jul 11 at 1:03 pm
I’m 46 years-old, and I have just received my second degree (I earned my first degree in 1994). It was a waste of my time and money (I paid my tuition out of pocket) to have returned for that second degree. The quality of my high school education, from 1982, was of higher quality than what I received in my second degree.
The US, so-called, “higher education” system is nearly worthless. I wonder when the rest of the world will realize that a US education isn’t worth the cost.
Kevin Benko
18 Jul 11 at 4:08 pm
Louis
They are bell-shaped; within A- the median.
Peter Patton
20 Jul 11 at 4:16 pm
In Australia, it is the competition for government PhD scholarships – APAs – that strikes me as the cause of grade inflation. In 2011, a 1st Class Honours degree does not guarantee an APA, which compared to even 20 years ago is scandalous.
Peter Patton
20 Jul 11 at 4:22 pm