Grade Inflation

James Kierstead at the NZ Initiative has done what hasn’t been done before, and looked at how many university students are getting As compared to the past. His findings show rampant grade inflation. Key findings:

• In the US the proportion of A grades has gone from 15% in 1940 to 45% a decade ago
• In England the proportion of degrees that are first class has gone from 7% in 1995 to 27% in 2019
• In NZ the proportion of A grades has grown from 22% in 2006 to 35% last year
• The largest increase was Lincoln that went from 15% As in 2010 to 39% As in 2024
• By discipline the largest increase was Arts and Humanities that went from 24% As to 40% As
• The smallest increases were Engineering (33% to 34%) and Law (17% to 21%)
• In 2020 49% of Auckland students got an A and 40% of Otago students

The reason for the grade inflation appears to be financial – the more students you have the more money the university gets, and failing too many students can drive numbers down. The same incentive applies at faculty level. Also an issue is courses with low pass rates can lost TEC funding.

There are some useful suggestions for how to reduce grade inflation in future, such as:

• List their rank or percentile in class as well as their grade (my old school reports would list my rank in every subject)
• Include the average mark on the report
• Include their distance from the mean in terms of standard deviations

Sadly I suspect no university will take up these suggestions.