Harvard faculty vote to cap 'A' grades at 20% in sweeping effort to combat decades of grade inflation
Harvard faculty voted in favor of capping A grades at 20% on Wednesday in an effort to combat grade inflation.
"Today the Harvard faculty voted to make their grades mean what they say they mean," a statement from members of the Harvard faculty subcommittee told Fox News Digital.
"For decades, grade inflation has been a collective-action problem: everyone saw it, but no one faculty member could fix it alone," it continued. "The faculty have now taken a major step to fix it together. We are gratified that the FAS faculty has approved the core elements of our committee’s recommendations for simple, effective measures to address the problem of grade inflation—an essential step in the broader effort to recenter academics at Harvard College."
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Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted on a three-part proposal addressing grading and overwhelmingly passed a measure that would limit awarding A grades for the final undergraduate course enrollment to "at most" 20% plus four to account for smaller courses, though grades at A- or below would not be subjected to a limit.
Harvard faculty also passed a measure to use average percentile rank (APR) instead of grade point average (GPA) to offer distinct awards and prizes among students.
The faculty, however, rejected a measure that would allow courses to petition to opt out of the new policy if they were graded at a "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" level.
"This is a consequential vote. It will, I believe, strengthen the academic culture of Harvard; it will also, I hope, encourage other institutions to confront similar questions with the same level of rigor and courage," Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh said in a statement. "This vote is an important step toward ensuring that our grading system better serves its central purposes: giving students meaningful feedback, recognizing genuine distinction, and sustaining the academic mission of the College."
The policy will go into effect for the 2027-28 academic year and will be reviewed again three years after implementation. It applies to all undergraduate letter-graded courses offered by all departments.
The measure was first proposed in February in response to a report showing more than 60% of grades Harvard undergraduates received were A’s, compared to only a quarter of grades 20 years ago. After the report was released in October, the rate of A's dropped by 7%.
Though faculty largely supported the new measures, students have been less welcoming to the idea of stricter grading policies. A February survey from the Harvard Undergraduate Association found that nearly 85% of students opposed the idea of capping A grades.
Some Harvard students even started a petition to abandon the proposals, which they deemed "racist."
"This petition calls on Harvard to reject the proposed grading policy, arguing that it is not merely flawed but racially harmful in effect," it read.
