Whitepaper
Grade Inflation
Which US universities and subject areas show the strongest grade improvements and how does grade inflation affect the comparability of academic performance?
Grade inflation refers to a trend in which average grades improve over time without a corresponding increase in actual academic achievement. This makes it harder for employers and universities to identify outstanding candidates.
The analysis is based on more than 335 million individual course grades. Nearly 700 American universities have provided case with yearly grade distributions since 2015 across a range of subjects.
The whitepaper compares universities overall and by broader subject categories. This makes visible where grade inflation is strongest and how grading standards evolve differently across institutions.