Let’s Say ‘C-You-Later’ to the Letter Grade System

The classic A-through-F grading system is something American students become accustomed to from an early age. In our media, in our language and, of course, in our classrooms, it’s almost inescapable between the ages of five and 22. But despite its ubiquity, our grading system isn’t working — either for students or their lives post-graduation.

Traditional grading causes students unnecessary stress and incentivizes working toward the letter grade instead of thoroughly engaging with class content.

At their simplest level, grades are how institutions verify students’ learning and performances. In a typical grading scale, like the one used by Loyola, grades are assessed on a four-point scale.

This system is almost synonymous with education — but it hasn’t always been. The alphabetical system was first documented at Mount Holyoke College in 1897, according to Slate.

Even then, letter grades weren’t universal. By 1971, a third of American schools didn’t use them, according to the National Education Association. While alphabetical grades allow for easy shorthand grading, they can “misrepresent and warp the accuracy” of student evaluations, according to the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The lines get even blurrier between courses at Loyola. While one professor may award full A’s for anything above a 92%, another may set the line at 93% or even 95%. The problem trickles down to other grades too, with the exact lines between letter increments, pluses and minuses varying from syllabus to syllabus.

While Loyola has a policy for converting letter grades to grade point averages, the same isn’t true for assigning grades, and professors have latitude to grade classes as they see fit. This allows for flexibility but can leave students confused on what exactly their grade represents.

Moreover, the system’s all-or-nothing structure can foster feelings of failure, depression, anxiety and even lead to substance abuse, according to a 2021 University of San Diego study.

The letter grade system can also implicitly encourage students and teachers to cheat to get ahead, seeking to boost a borderline B+ to an A- or boost class averages through lax grading, according to the American Federation of Teachers.

Academic dishonesty has also risen rapidly in the last decades, according to Stanford University’s Academic Cheating Fact Sheet, further cementing the system’s issues.

Additionally, grade inflation has become a major issue, as students and educators chase high scores. Grades are becoming increasingly disconnected from general student performance, with a strong link between artificially inflated grades and decreased study time, according to a 2010 University of California Santa Barbara study.

The grading system also encourages unequal practices between institutions, meaning any efforts to end score inflation could leave current students at a disadvantage compared to past students who already benefited from the system.

Letter grade inflation is nearly universal at the university level. A’s became the single most common grade at American universities in 1997, according to research from retired Duke professor Stuart Rojstaczer.

But it’s hard to blame universities for sticking to the current system. Given the state of the economy and the rise of artificial intelligence, it’s becoming harder than ever for college graduates to find full employment, according to Forbes Magazine, leaving fewer slots to a growing pool of applicants.

Under this employment slump, qualifications like GPA become even more important — especially since the number of employers considering applicants’ grades is on the rise, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Schools with generous grading policies give their students an instant leg up on applications for both jobs and graduate schools, leaving little incentive to change.

Between the job market, graduate schools and an aversion to failing students, students, professors and universities are all incentivized to boost GPAs within the current system — even as it continues to fail students mentally and academically.

Some universities, like Columbia and Cornell, go so far as to give A+ grades — a 4.3 grade point that gives their students an additional boost over the typical 4.0 maximum.

This problem, though, doesn’t have to be permanent, and we shouldn’t let it stay just for old time’s sake. In the last decade there’s been a movement to rethink how schools in the United States grade students, and it’s one we’d all be well served by adopting.

Education experts have called for a move away from raw scores and toward mastery goals, de-emphasizing grades and encouraging students to consider success outside of the classroom, according to education researcher Dr. Robert Talbert.

Especially in an age of ChatGPT when cheating is easier than ever, rethinking grades to be student-focused can reduce faculty workload and student stress — all while boosting learning and preventing opportunities for academic dishonesty, according to the National Library of Medicine.

There’s nothing wrong with evaluating students or pushing for improvement — but our current system is far from a passing grade.