A college degree previously signified, as well as required, a higher degree of intelligence and learning. Today, however, that "impression has precipitously eroded over the past several decades."
Grade inflation: my experience at 3 schools, HS, satellite campus, main campus Big Ten school.
In 1989 I started college at a local state satellite school. I should preface this with my HS English Sr class. We had to write something that back-then was called a research paper. We did not have computers. My topic, was Vonnegut’s use of sarcasm to not just be funny but make social criticism in Slaughter-House Five. I went to that satellite school library to look through academic journal indexes to find journal articles. Many were on microfiche. Enough about “primitive” research. The paper was to be 12-15 pages double spaced (couldn’t pick font or font size on typewriter) to include a cover page, the paper, and bibliography with 15 sources minimum using APA citation style. My teacher said in her grading notes, “This paper deserves an A for the quality and depth of analysis. However, your syntax is maddening and punishes the reader.” 36 years later I still remember. Still have the paper.
What did I learn? That I understood things and analyze them well but I was careless with drafts and proofing.
Skip to College. History major with my favorite two old and old school profs at satellite campus. These guys were all about Vikings, Anglo-Saxon history, Europe during the rise of nation states. I was in love. But these guys were not “modern” graders. They got their PhDs in the 1940s. One was a Churchill expert. My first class with either was a survey course. 35 years age all majors were required to take Western History 101 and 202. This was 202 in my second semester. Returning our first exams Dr. Schoenfeld told the class, ~many of you may be disappointed in your grades. You are now in college. A “B” is perfectly acceptable college work.
Skip to second year and I am familiar with expectations. I take Lutz’s Anglo-Saxon history course. In order to get an A one needed to have an exam average of at least 93 AND write a ten page paper, annotated, and footnoted relevant to the course. That was tough on a typewriter. I wrote mine on Cnut King of the Tides. Called it the single most important event in English history, thus the West’s. The king is not above the law.
I transfer to main Campus, state next door. In no history class was I required to actually write a research paper. An outline with sources was sufficient. It was disappointing not to be challenged. I got As with minimal effort. Hell, one class I skipped a bunch of mini-tests because I didn’t feel like taking them. Two weeks before final prof asks me if I’d like to take the mini-tests?! I met her in office, took all four in about twenty minutes. Of course an A.
I wrote one challenging paper there. Augustine in the Classical Age of Rome was the class and I wrote a paper on the cosmology of Plotinus. His influence on Augustine and the Holy Trinity is remarkable.
My Vonnegut paper in HS and a paper I wrote on Churchill at the satellite school formed a core for my senior paper. Perspectives on the Fire Bombing of Dresden. I had abandoned a year’s worth of half-assed research on Patrick Pearse two months before the paper was due. The two-quarter class had one grade, the paper. Wrote it in about two weeks and got a B+.
My HS research paper, and the supplemental papers at the satellite school were real, I
worked and earned those As. The main campus practically bent over to give students As.
Instructors who’d not yet been granted a professorship relied on student reviews for advancement on main campus. As equalled great reviews.
College wasn’t a place of academic endeavor. I don’t think it had been explicitly recognized quite yet. But this was the beginning of credentialing factories.
With it came expanding class sizes with subsidized student loans. Grades exploded and so did tuition. My first semester at the satellite school was $483.00 plus book deposit. Left with no debt. Got to man campus for 2 years and left with $25,000 debt.
As with any market minting money (or Malthusian theory) it expands to the limit of its resources. As it does so the quality of product supported the weight of expansion. As resources to create the product stretched ever thinner… so did the quality of the product. Except here, we do not have a population of rabbits or a private real estate bond market. This expansion is supported by student loans… rather, the federal government securing the trillions of student debt incurred while the credential factories churned.
But now…. the product has become confident in the high quality of their work requiring minimal effort. And then they try to get a job. They expect the same environment. In gov’t work they probably find it. In the real world they do not.
The credential factories created their own day of reckoning.
Grade inflation: my experience at 3 schools, HS, satellite campus, main campus Big Ten school.
In 1989 I started college at a local state satellite school. I should preface this with my HS English Sr class. We had to write something that back-then was called a research paper. We did not have computers. My topic, was Vonnegut’s use of sarcasm to not just be funny but make social criticism in Slaughter-House Five. I went to that satellite school library to look through academic journal indexes to find journal articles. Many were on microfiche. Enough about “primitive” research. The paper was to be 12-15 pages double spaced (couldn’t pick font or font size on typewriter) to include a cover page, the paper, and bibliography with 15 sources minimum using APA citation style. My teacher said in her grading notes, “This paper deserves an A for the quality and depth of analysis. However, your syntax is maddening and punishes the reader.” 36 years later I still remember. Still have the paper.
What did I learn? That I understood things and analyze them well but I was careless with drafts and proofing.
Skip to College. History major with my favorite two old and old school profs at satellite campus. These guys were all about Vikings, Anglo-Saxon history, Europe during the rise of nation states. I was in love. But these guys were not “modern” graders. They got their PhDs in the 1940s. One was a Churchill expert. My first class with either was a survey course. 35 years age all majors were required to take Western History 101 and 202. This was 202 in my second semester. Returning our first exams Dr. Schoenfeld told the class, ~many of you may be disappointed in your grades. You are now in college. A “B” is perfectly acceptable college work.
Skip to second year and I am familiar with expectations. I take Lutz’s Anglo-Saxon history course. In order to get an A one needed to have an exam average of at least 93 AND write a ten page paper, annotated, and footnoted relevant to the course. That was tough on a typewriter. I wrote mine on Cnut King of the Tides. Called it the single most important event in English history, thus the West’s. The king is not above the law.
I transfer to main Campus, state next door. In no history class was I required to actually write a research paper. An outline with sources was sufficient. It was disappointing not to be challenged. I got As with minimal effort. Hell, one class I skipped a bunch of mini-tests because I didn’t feel like taking them. Two weeks before final prof asks me if I’d like to take the mini-tests?! I met her in office, took all four in about twenty minutes. Of course an A.
I wrote one challenging paper there. Augustine in the Classical Age of Rome was the class and I wrote a paper on the cosmology of Plotinus. His influence on Augustine and the Holy Trinity is remarkable.
My Vonnegut paper in HS and a paper I wrote on Churchill at the satellite school formed a core for my senior paper. Perspectives on the Fire Bombing of Dresden. I had abandoned a year’s worth of half-assed research on Patrick Pearse two months before the paper was due. The two-quarter class had one grade, the paper. Wrote it in about two weeks and got a B+.
My HS research paper, and the supplemental papers at the satellite school were real, I
worked and earned those As. The main campus practically bent over to give students As.
Instructors who’d not yet been granted a professorship relied on student reviews for advancement on main campus. As equalled great reviews.
College wasn’t a place of academic endeavor. I don’t think it had been explicitly recognized quite yet. But this was the beginning of credentialing factories.
With it came expanding class sizes with subsidized student loans. Grades exploded and so did tuition. My first semester at the satellite school was $483.00 plus book deposit. Left with no debt. Got to man campus for 2 years and left with $25,000 debt.
As with any market minting money (or Malthusian theory) it expands to the limit of its resources. As it does so the quality of product supported the weight of expansion. As resources to create the product stretched ever thinner… so did the quality of the product. Except here, we do not have a population of rabbits or a private real estate bond market. This expansion is supported by student loans… rather, the federal government securing the trillions of student debt incurred while the credential factories churned.
But now…. the product has become confident in the high quality of their work requiring minimal effort. And then they try to get a job. They expect the same environment. In gov’t work they probably find it. In the real world they do not.
The credential factories created their own day of reckoning.
Please tell us what you really think! Good essay.
Please tell us what you really think! Good essay.