Can good grades be rationed?
Here’s one way to curb grade inflation – Princeton is considering rationing the number of A’s to be awarded in each department: In what would be the strongest measure to combat grade inflation by an elite university, Princeton faculty will vote later this month on a plan to require each academic department to award an A-plus, A or A-minus for no more than 35percent of its grades. A’s have been awarded 46percent of the time in recent years at Princeton, up from 31 percent in the mid- 1970s. Since 1998, the New Jersey school has been encouraging its faculty to crack down, but marks have kept rising. Finally, Princeton administrators decided rationing was the only solution. “I think it’s tremendously significant that Princeton is doing this, and I do think it will have a ripple effect,” said Bradford P. Wilson, a part- time teacher at Princeton and executive director of the National Association of Scholars, a group that has spoken out against grade inflation. “What goes on at the premier
