Putting Grades in Context
46 Pages
Posted: 21 May 2009
Last revised: 9 Oct 2009
University of Connecticut - Department of Economics
Cornell University - Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Department of Economics
Date Written: September 22, 2009
Abstract
Concerns over grade inflation and the profusion of high grades have led institutions of higher education in the United States to adopt various grading reforms. An element common to several prominent reforms is providing information on the distribution of grades in different courses. The main aims of such “grades in context” policies are to make grades more informative to transcript readers and to curb grade inflation. We provide a simple model to demonstrate that such policies can have complex effects on atterns of enrollment and student ability distributions. These effects may in turn lower the informativeness of some transcripts, increase the average grade, and lower welfare
Keywords: grades in context, grade inflation, information, course selection, higher education
JEL Classification: I21
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Bar, Talia and Kadiyali, Vrinda and Zussman, Asaf, Putting Grades in Context (September 22, 2009). Johnson School Research Paper Series No. 26-09. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1406681 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1406681
