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Grade Inflation
Dr. Heather Monroe-Blum, Principal
Grade Inflation at McGill: My Perspective
I am a senior at McGill University, both of my parents also attended many years ago. Just in the three plus years that I've been a student here, I've noticed a trend in grading that I find disturbing. It seems to me that many students are finding it increasingly easy to get and maintain a 3.0 GPA -- something I believe a college student should really have to work hard for. My parents claim that although competition wasn't nearly as fierce among students when they were younger, professors expected class participation, extensive term papers, and a great deal of homework. I have tried to keep myself challenged by aiming for above average grades in all subjects, but I find myself losing interest and even becoming lazy as so many of my peers are spending so little time actually studying; yet they are getting B. averages. I am concerned that rampant cheating via internet resources, as well as a weakening of resolve among professors, is causing serious grade inflation and character deflation.
Across the nation, statistics show that just between the years 1991 through 2007, grade point averages at private schools went up on average...
This is a huge change; surely we're not getting that much smarter. I would argue that such a dramatic shift since 1991 is clearly due to the advent of the Internet and its copious resources -- a goldmine for cheaters. Most disturbing of all, however, is the fact that so much of this inflation is taking place at America's finest educational institutions -- such as Harvard (Schiming, 2009). This could be due to cheating; more likely, it's due to lazy professors who believe if you've jumped through enough hoops to get into Harvard, you should pretty much be home free. And of course that makes the professors' jobs much easier as well. But if we're turning out Harvard graduates who've lollygagged their way to good grades, and these people will be looked upon as the future experts in their fields, that does not bode well for the fate of the United States. Just some of the problems associated with grade inflation include: poor quality of work, moral and intellectual decline, inability to accurately measure success with grades, and public dissatisfaction with educational institutions (Dresner, 2004).
Experts cite many possible "excuses" for grade inflation over the past twenty years: institutional pressure to retain…
Works Cited
Dresner, J. (2004, 08-02). Grade Inflation: Why It's a Nightmare. Retrieved 12-02, 2010, from hnn.us: http://hnn.us/articles/6591.html fortyquestions, s. (2010, 11-08). When Grade Inflation Really Began. Retrieved 12 2, 2010, from www.fortyquestions.blogspot.com: http://fortyquestions.blogspot.com/2010/11/when-grade-inflation-really-began.html
Kennedy, M. (2010, 11-17). Is There Too Much Emphasis on Achievement? Retrieved 12-02, 2010, from www.educationjobsiteblog.com: http://www.educationjobsiteblog.com/2010/11/is-there-too-much-emphasis-on.html
Rojstaczer, S. (2002). National Trends in Grade Inflation. Retrieved 12 2, 2010, from http://www.gradeinflation.com/: http://www.gradeinflation.com/
Schiming, R. (2009, 10-09). Grade Inflation Article. Retrieved 12 2, 2010, from www.mnsu.edu: http://www.mnsu.edu/cetl/teachingresources/articles/gradeinflation.html
2.5. Limitations of the study At the level of the limitations, these refer to the usage of secondary information, as opposed to the collection of primary data through the direct analysis of the Chinese market. This limitation is nevertheless addressed through the integration of multiple sources of valid and verifiable information, leading as such to the creation of solid, relevant and reliable findings. The second limitation is one common to all research
" 2 Apr. 2004. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Retrieved November 21, 2006 from Web site: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2004/el2004-08.html Ranson, David. "Inflation." The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics." Retrieved November 21, 2006 from Web site: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Inflation.html Inflation." Wikipedia. Retrieved November 21, 2006 from Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#The_role_of_inflation_in_the_economy Svensson, Lars E.O., "Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation: The Foolproof Way and Others." Dec. 2003. Retrieved November 21, 2006 from Web site: http://www.princeton.edu/svensson/papers/jep2.pdf Inflation." Encyclopedia of American History.
Conclusions There is no generally accepted theory of inflation. The causes that generate it are numerous and include economic, psychological, social, political, internal, and external factors. Inflation is based on numerous partial causes, which correlated determine the inflationist process. Inflation is generally considered an unbalance between money and goods, consisting in the existence of excessive money supply in relation with the volume of goods subjected to transactions, resulting an excess of unsatisfied total demand. Given the processes that determine
"..most importantly, we find that inflation has a dramatic negative impact on the profitability of banks." (2006) Boyd and Champ additionally state that: "The world has seen a dramatic decline in inflation rates in recent decades, but concerns about inflation may still be warranted, especially in some countries. Evidence is mounting that inflation is harmful to economic activity even at fairly modest rates of inflation because of the way it
The clarification of the timeframe before the inflation will return to the level that has been targeted following the shock of employment rate shifts is "the horizon of the policy rule." (McDonald, nd; 73) Inflation rates grew for two years while interest rates were rising and yet unemployment was lowering during this time. In the United States, it can be noted as well that while unemployment rates grew inflation
The Federal Reserve should be able to control and measure the demand and supply on the market and correlate the two indexes. Also, and probably most importantly, the Reserve should constantly supervise and regulate the monetary system, assuring correspondence between the amount of money in coins and bills on the market and their coverage in gold and in the total quantity of goods and services produced. The economic practice has concluded