In a significant move, Harvard faculty recently voted to cap the number of full A’s awarded in courses. This decision marks the culmination of years of discussions. The new rule utilizes a ’20 plus four’ formula. This means that only about 20% of students in a course can receive full A’s. An asterisk in this rule allows an additional four students to receive A’s, a stipulation tailored for small, advanced seminars.

The challenge now lies in ensuring this change improves the educational quality offered at Harvard. This task extends beyond internal decisions and includes broader educational strategies.

Grade inflation poses several challenges. It diminishes students’ motivation to learn, leading to graduates with limited knowledge and skills. Furthermore, it blurs the distinction between truly exceptional students and their merely successful peers. Contradictorily, while inflated grades might appear to reduce student stress, they have caused harsh criteria for acknowledgments such as summa cum laude.

Throughout seven years of teaching Harvard’s introductory economics class, EC 10, instructors have awarded full A’s to over 4,000 students, accounting for more than 49% of those taught. These numbers are lower compared to other instructors who awarded full A’s 60% of the time in the 2024-2025 academic year. However, not all these students achieved the ‘extraordinary distinction’ that a full A should represent according to the student handbook.

Many educators, including us, aspire to apply stricter grading standards but face concerns about disadvantaging students or deterring them from the field. This scenario exemplifies the collective-action problem often discussed in EC 10 courses. Individuals might agree in principle to act for the societal good but end up prioritizing personal interests. This tendency is evident in other contexts like fisheries depletion and pollution of public lands and waterways.

The pressures of grade inflation particularly impact junior faculty, who fear honest grading might lead to negative evaluations, decreased course enrollments, and jeopardized tenure prospects. Consequently, grade inflation became pervasive, raising the grades continually over time.

Despite encouragement from various deans to reduce the frequency of full A’s, significant change only occurred after collective action was taken. Aligning individual incentives with societal benefits requires mechanisms that encourage or mandate actions for the common good. This theme is also explored in EC 10.