Podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Yale Law School professor Sarath Sanga, co-author of a new report explaining why the American public is losing trust in the country’s colleges and universities.
I certainly felt the impact of this at UT Austin in Liberal Arts, specifically the stress of realizing how important it is to maintain a 4.0. In my time there, I got the highest academic honors of being a Distinguished College Scholar with a 4.0 GPA. But, in one class in my second to last semester, I received an A-. That was enough to demote to to just a College Scholar.
I, as a student in the Philosophy department, worked very hard for my grades. But we were bundled in with the entire Liberal Arts College and I would not be surprised if there are some other degrees where it’s much easier to maintain a 4.0.
One of the speakers at the event actually commented on how impressive it was that the average GPA for Distinguished was so high compared to the past, even saying that it would only allow for a single A-. The irony for me in the audience being that that was exactly what demoted me. The further irony being that he apparently failed to recognize that it’s probably not just increased student performance, but incentives like discussed here that cause inflation.
I certainly felt the impact of this at UT Austin in Liberal Arts, specifically the stress of realizing how important it is to maintain a 4.0. In my time there, I got the highest academic honors of being a Distinguished College Scholar with a 4.0 GPA. But, in one class in my second to last semester, I received an A-. That was enough to demote to to just a College Scholar.
I, as a student in the Philosophy department, worked very hard for my grades. But we were bundled in with the entire Liberal Arts College and I would not be surprised if there are some other degrees where it’s much easier to maintain a 4.0.
One of the speakers at the event actually commented on how impressive it was that the average GPA for Distinguished was so high compared to the past, even saying that it would only allow for a single A-. The irony for me in the audience being that that was exactly what demoted me. The further irony being that he apparently failed to recognize that it’s probably not just increased student performance, but incentives like discussed here that cause inflation.