The Report Card with Nat Malkus
Jun 3, 2026 · 1 hr 19 min · 12 segments
Recently, Harvard faculty voted to push back on grade inflation at the institution by capping the proportion of A’s given to students at 20%. But according to a new paper, Harvard’s new policy—and…
Scott Duke KominersGuest
Nat MalkusHost
So Scott, Harvard faculty recently voted to adopt a policy that would push back on grade inflation, and you've argued against this policy for reasons that we will get into shortly.
Um, and, and maybe we should start by thinking a little bit about the term itself, right? Just what is grade inflation per se, 'cause there, there's even some debate and, and confusion about that, I think.
Um, first of all, you know, we have seen, you know, uh, at Harvard and, and many universities, um, you know, a, a, a trend year on year of, of increasing grades measured by, you know, lots of different metrics.
Measured by average or median grades in the class, um, measured by number of students getting whatever the top grade is, um, even some real sort of extreme statistics.
Um, Harvard has a prize that's given out to the summa graduate with the most, uh, with the highest GPA, grade point average, and, uh, I don't remember the exact numbers, but that chart, you know, we've had sort of like, you know, 50-person ties in, in, you know, in some years, like recently.
So there's increases in grades as a trend, and then there's inflation, which one should think of as giving out, you know, either, you know, professors or, you know, instructors giving out, students receiving grades that are, you know, sort of, you know, in some, in some clear sense higher as a function of performance than they were previously.
You know, one, $1, you know, doesn't buy as much as it used to after inflation.
You know, one, one A after inflation doesn't mean the same thing it used to mean.
And these are different, right? No, you can-- or rather, they're, they're, they're linked, but they're not exactly the same concept, right? You could have, uh, you know, a situation where grades just ascend monotonically, uh, you know, sort of just keep going up because everyone's performance is improving so much that your old performance thresholds are, are no longer serious.
Uh, but it doesn't necessarily mean just because grades go up doesn't necessarily mean they've inflated.
So Scott, Harvard faculty recently voted to adopt a policy that would push back on grade inflation, and you've argued against this policy for reasons that we will get into shortly.
Um, and, and maybe we should start by thinking a little bit about the term itself, right? Just what is grade inflation per se, 'cause there, there's even some debate and, and confusion about that, I think.
Um, first of all, you know, we have seen, you know, uh, at Harvard and, and many universities, um, you know, a, a, a trend year on year of, of increasing grades measured by, you know, lots of different metrics.
Measured by average or median grades in the class, um, measured by number of students getting whatever the top grade is, um, even some real sort of extreme statistics.
Um, Harvard has a prize that's given out to the summa graduate with the most, uh, with the highest GPA, grade point average, and, uh, I don't remember the exact numbers, but that chart, you know, we've had sort of like, you know, 50-person ties in, in, you know, in some years, like recently.
So there's increases in grades as a trend, and then there's inflation, which one should think of as giving out, you know, either, you know, professors or, you know, instructors giving out, students receiving grades that are, you know, sort of, you know, in some, in some clear sense higher as a function of performance than they were previously.
You know, one, $1, you know, doesn't buy as much as it used to after inflation.
You know, one, one A after inflation doesn't mean the same thing it used to mean.
And these are different, right? No, you can-- or rather, they're, they're, they're linked, but they're not exactly the same concept, right? You could have, uh, you know, a situation where grades just ascend monotonically, uh, you know, sort of just keep going up because everyone's performance is improving so much that your old performance thresholds are, are no longer serious.
Uh, but it doesn't necessarily mean just because grades go up doesn't necessarily mean they've inflated.
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