WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: Is Grade Inflation a Problem?

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Emma and Sophia discuss an article that claims the rise of "easy A's" has come with unintended negative consequences.

Welcome back to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, a witty radio show where we discuss current events and culture through the lens of an article. I am Emma Verini, and I am here with Sophia Mant. Today, we will be discussing an Atlantic article entitled The Perverse Consequences of an EasyA. In the era of great inflation, students at top colleges are more stressed than ever. By Rose Horowitz. Yes, and to begin, I'll start by quoting Dr. Ray, a Hillsdale professor of history and a Rhodes Scholar, who in an interview when asked about the state of modern institutions, said, most of our universities now are across between a country club and a brothel, and that's about all they are.

I don't think there's a state university in the United States that you couldn't get through without doing the reading. And he mentions he wants to do a student who had previously gone to another state institution. And she said that there, you could go to class or you could do the reading, but you certainly didn't need to do both, which he finds very concerning.

Like, well, how much are you really actually valuing education and that kind of focus? And if that's the expectations, if it's really that easy. And he said that he thought that, you know, almost all institutions are like that. And they said the other thing is that, in his opinion, the curricula is terrible,

just in that it doesn't emphasize certain things that you need to know about your own world, about the world beyond your shores, and just how one can get through college without doing any of that. And in a way, I think that this highlights problems with this, the piece itself was great. So problems with the modern institutional system and how it seems like now it's so focused on success, but in a way that's ironically actually rather irrational, that, you know, grades, everyone gets A, students are told not to tell if they got a good GPA, if they're a Harvard graduate, because now that's meaningless, that everyone's stressing and focusing on extracurriculars and, you know, most people apparently in class, according to a student, quoted in the article, haven't even really read the, you know, whatever they're supposed to be reading in class deep enough to even engage with its ideas. So that's an even deeper problem, I think, than just the problems people have raised with the bias of the curricula or a lack of free speech at those institutions. So it's really unfortunate, and not to do my own horn, but it makes me happy that I go to Hillsdale

where there's lots of an issue. And one more thing I'll say before I take it over to Emma is, it is kind of interesting to me how in our modern, you know, technological society, a lot of the times, even though we claim to be, oh, so rational, sometimes that level of an extreme focus on career success is clearly actually irrational. And I think, for example, my dad would work in South Korea where they're even more kind of focused on everything new and innovation than here and how they were so obsessed with new technology that they'd want us to use or my dad to use whatever was newest even sometimes before been tested or they knew what it was doing and he was like why should we use it like there was this obsession with using new stuff when like a lot of the

times he said sometimes it would break down or there'd be recalls or it wouldn't work like it was like a lot of the times actually less convenient and successful to be that focused with just constantly developing stuff that might already work so I don't know. Kind of see parallels between that and this piece. I do think that this raises the question of whether or not Harvard is just admitting smarter students. And actually, the article does address this. It's pretty evident that the students they're admitting, despite the fact that acceptance rates have declined at elite universities, are not smarter than they were a decade or two decades ago. One of the examples is an exam that Stephen Pinker

one of their professors and ministers, which he said the average grade declined over the last 20 years by 10 points? Or was it by 10 years? The exact quote said that Stephen Pinker told me that 20 years ago he gave a quarter of the students in his intro site course in A or A minus. Then students off signing up. Now almost two thirds are in the A range. And he's not made his class either easier or more difficult. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, so that's concerning and odd because it's like this class, you know, Harvard's so selective, but then students are doing worse or less focus on their academics.

But a part of me does wonder if like obviously, you know, having extremely high ACT and test scores and whatnot probably matters, but maybe more now, it's just extracurriculars. I don't know. It is kind of odd, though, because like, you know. know, it sounds like academically the students are worse in some ways. Or, you know, now some are getting A's just because they're doing strong worth and a mental health crisis derailed their progress. Or they get the mark because they're from less privileged backgrounds and demonstrated improvement. It's kind of like, eh, I'm not the biggest fan of that, to be honest. You know, I understand being kind and understanding to students that are struggling, but I don't think

it's fair to just give them a better grade if they didn't do as good work. I mean, if anything, The deeper problem is you shouldn't like grades matter that much to your soul and your psyche that you feel the need to give an A just because stuff like that happened. And if our society doesn't understand it, then that's a problem with our society. You know what I mean? Like I know I did worse academically the first semester of my freshman year, even though I was trying my hardest because, you know, I didn't have any crazy mental health crisis or anything like that. But socially, I was struggling more with adjustment and getting used to studying in the institution. And I don't think I deserve to get a better grade than a senior. You you know, that's part of the learning process. Yeah, I think there's this huge emphasis now on extracurriculars because we don't want to think that people are better learners or better in school than other people. So instead what we try to do is place a huge emphasis on hard work and how much time you're spending in extracurriculars

and how much, how many different jobs you're getting and how many hours you're putting into certain things. So that really ups the load of things that students feel like they have to do because it's not enough to just go to college like people did back in the old days and get good grades when it was harder to get good grades because that could be seen as enforcing some sort of inequality among people. So now it's just a matter of, oh, well, we all just have to work really hard, which, you know, in turn has led to this whole grade inflation issue.

Yeah. Well, what's also kind of odd, too, is I'm just being candid. like I struggled more in certain classes than others, and in my Greek class, I'll just be up front. I got like a C in that second or third semester. And I know for a fact, I was spending more time trying to study and understand it than most people in that class. And I got a worst grade than a lot of people in that class. I don't think I was the worst student in there. And, you know, that's not fun. That's not you to admit you're objectively, probably a bit slower mentally when it comes to like learning a language. That's something I struggle with. But, you know, it's, It doesn't feel fair for me to just get an A just for that reason. And but then on the other hand, you know, it made me realize, well, there's other ways in which I have very strong academic strengths. Like, I would do very well and, you know, probably closer to the top of my class and other more niche areas that made it kind of feel more interesting or special. Like, hey, this is what I'm good at when I came to more sociology or humanities type classes where like social psych, I would do better than probably almost anyone else. I don't know. It's just like this unwillingness to accept it or understand it. And one thing that I appreciate are Hillsdale's college president, Dr. Arne, is I know that he has talked a lot about how he doesn't love just purely activist student organizations, even if they're on the right or broadly don't disagree with his views. Because he has this view that I think is unlike most institutions of kind of supporting the contemplative life or that you should first before you're going to argue have all these strong feelings about the world.

at least know and understand and spend time learning them before, um, before, you know, debating and activating and going out into the world speaking your mind. And, um, it's like, yeah, it's almost like you don't have to go do activism while you're in college. So just dedicate that time to studying and doing well in your actual classes, which is why you came to college in the first place. Exactly. And you'll probably be better off four years down the road debating people once you leave college. Yeah. I mean, somewhat in defense, I don't think this is the case in a lot of situations,

but there definitely are some case in which people have strong beliefs or maybe are activist and they actually are fairly well read sometimes when it. But I get the impression that's not the case. But that's kind of like when I said this earlier, there's this quote from the other course that her peers mostly don't read text closely enough to form opinions in the first place. And so it's like they're not even engaging with this big ideas, which is insane. And like I said, this also seems another case of like, ironically, even though we're so obsessed with action and doing stuff and I get it and we don't just want to be locked up in the ivory

tower, it's actually more irrational, I think, to like solely focus on extracurriculars and not understanding big ideas, even in an activist sense. Like, if I'm going to fight for something, I better understand sure well what I'm fighting for and what I'm against. I think there's also a huge distinction between people who value getting straight A's and people who actually desire to learn, like, if, you know, culturally, you're saying, oh, well, it's really important to get straight A's. Stray days are the goal. Then you really sort of lose that, like, innate curiosity that a lot of people who do well

in school have. So it's sort of a tradeoff almost. Do you want to get straight A's or do you actually, like, love learning and care to know more things. Exactly. And I think a lot of the times, like at Hillsdale, I get the impression that a lot of the most successful students have around a 3.0 GPA, especially because here the classes are actually difficult enough where it takes effort to get A's and a lot of stuff. Like, if you have around a 3.0 or B GPA, you're actually still spending a decent amount of time working fairly

hard in academics. Or at least, like, my GPA is a bit better than that, but like I am, and I don't have like a 4.0. But you're also spending enough time doing extracurricular as another activities like it's a good balance um between that you're listening to flyover features on radio free hillsdale 101.7 fm yes um also they talked about how you know thinking it was thought that getting easy a's would decrease student stress and in fact this hasn't happened at all and granted i think there could be other uh sociocultural reasons for this but um the the piece mentions that the percentage of first year students who have received counseling has nearly triple in the past decade.

And if anything, it's more so that the stress over academics is offset to other things like wanting to stand out and getting into these extremely selective extracurriculars that you're not even guaranteed entry to. So it's like it didn't even solve what they were originally intending to fix. So, yeah. Yeah, I find it so strange that people are, people's mental health is affected by not getting an A. It's like, I could see if you got like a C minus in a class that you'd be pretty stressed out or you would want to retake it. But not getting an A is really like not a huge deal.

Like even if you want to go to grad school, not getting an A is not going to ruin your chances of doing that or achieving your dreams, you know? Yeah, well, I'm not totally definite, but like, because at Hillsdale, like, it's definitely. your GPA is basically not going to be a 4.0. Like, I think, like, I think some of the, like, salutatorians, like, last year did not have a 4.0 GPA. That's how hard that it is. Like, it was, like, 3.96 or something like that. There was, like, one or two of the, like, four top students who I think had 4.0s, which just tells how hard it is. Or, like, at my high school, I'm not to brag, granted, there was, like, 14 people in my grade. But, like, I was a valedictorian. And I had, like,

a 3.8 because they don't give A's very easily. And so, I don't know. And I mean, I know people went to grad school who had like, you know, 3.6. That's good GPA. It may have affected some of the places they went to, but, you know, still are getting pretty successful. But, yeah, it's so weird because this one student says things have gotten to the point where some students feel guilty for focusing on schoolwork at the expense of extracurriculars. But it's odd because, like I said, if you're in a, like, ideological-based extracurricular, not that that's not valuable, but like, that definitely is hurting you. And honestly, like, our culture, if you, like, are so upset with joining these groups,

but you're also not spending any time at all actually contemplating the very ideas that may have led to them in existing. I don't know. Like, this actually seems to highlight problems I've noticed in general. But, I mean, if this is what the actual culture of these institutions is like, and I'm like, there's so much confidence in these thinkers you seem to have not read, well, the educational system itself is seeming to now value it. I don't know. It's also odd, too, because I spend so much more time in academics,

I've realized in a lot of other students at other colleges. I've realized that, though, when I first came to Hillsdale, something I noticed is that this is definitely a trend here, too. People pick up so many extracurriculars, and it didn't take me getting until my junior or senior year that I realized, like, the kids who are doing all those extracurriculars really do not have good grades. and they aren't able to, like, participate in class as well as the kids who just decide to have a more reasonable schedule and actually focus on reading and doing their reading in their

coursework. And I think I realized at some point, something that's really important to me is actually being able to do all my reading for class. Like, for instance, this semester, I haven't missed any of my reading. That is not something that I really want to compromise just to get some, you know, a couple of extracurriculars on my resume. I realized I really want to spend my time focused on my academics here because I'm not going to have the chance to do that after I graduate. But I do think this is a trend that's permeating like all institutions.

I don't think it's just Harvard, although it's probably a little bit worse at Harvard just because of the great inflation. Like if kids wanted to pull what they're pulling at Harvard here, they'd probably flunk out. But granted, there are also smarter kids at Harvard on average. So maybe they could get away with a little more here. but probably not too much. I'm going to be a little careful to cite any specific statistics, but I will say that, like, with Harvard students being smarter, there's also some really weird sketch stuff going on that you can look into

when it comes to legacy admissions and, like, students that are chosen from certain institutions or vice versa and DEI, that there's absolute geniuses in Harvard, but it is mixed up with that and a kind of hyper-competitive culture. I will read the statistic, actually, just because you brought it up. This is from Forbes 2020, which says that the overall acceptance rate at Harvard is 3.2%, which is super low. The average admit rate for donor-related applicants, so someone whose family member gave money to the college, 42%. That's insane. And for legacy, so someone whose parents went to the college, it's 34%.

Yeah. So, I mean, you also have to take into account, okay, people have more money in their family tend to have, you know, probably a higher IQ on average. So probably there's a reason that these numbers are higher. But, I mean, even taking that into account, it's a very high number in comparison to the average acceptance rate. That's high enough that, in my opinion, that definitely is unfair. And you know, me, I'm not some crazy egalitarian person, but there's some unfair stuff. Like, there's definitely objectively better students that are not getting in.

And I will say that I do know that some schools, I happen to be friends with Asians. And I'm half, joking, half serious. And I do know that, like, there's some extreme racial bias against them. Like, I know two students that go here to Hillsdale, objectively are probably better students than, like, a lot of people at other selective institutions, including, like, Harvard. I won't give their names, but they were not given, there's some horrible stuff going on here with this.

Like, it actually makes me mad. They were not, they didn't get to go to, say, you know, various selective institutions probably because of their race and because they were. weren't a CCP rich member. I'm dead serious. I know as another college where, like, a lot of the Chinese students are like part of the Communist Party, but if you're a Chinese student, that happens to, you know, not be part of that, almost impossible to get there.

It's like, there's some racial discrimination stuff going on. Well, it's racial discrimination. It's also class discrimination. Yeah. If you're a middle, okay, if you're Asian and you're middle class, you're kind of like, you're coming at it with, you're coming at it with a huge disadvantage. Yeah. As opposed to someone who would even be in the same race.

group and who would be upper class or whose family gave money to the college that they're applying to. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the students, both of the students I'm thinking of are, you know, middle class. I mean, they make decent amount of money, but they're not like super wealthy. And it's like, they both are like probably among the smartest students I've met honestly in their respective fields and not exaggerating. And I mean, they're ultimately glad they actually went here because they actually love the education and the culture and stuff. But it still does frustrate me to And they won't be discriminated against. Well, no, no, it's true.

That's a thing. I, yeah. Yeah, this is not, I'm not citing statistics. I'm just citing two students I know who were directly affected by that. And anecdotal evidence. Yeah, anecdotal. Yeah, I know that's happened, but yeah, it's unfortunate. But I'm, like I said, I'm glad that, like, because I'm kind of in middle of the road,

I'm pretty involved with extracurriculars, but also I value academics, but I'm also just really busy. And I'm just glad that I get the chance to actually think about. you know, deep thoughts, ideologies, and ideas, and get the chance to do that one. I think that's so important to know, especially when it comes to spreading my values and things that I think are important. I better understand the other side and I better understand my own side and challenge and question them constantly. That's all we have time for today. You're listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale

101.7 FM. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know.