Why Grade Inflation Has Struck Law Schools
Undergraduate grade inflation has been rampant at many elite colleges and universities for years, but now comes word that law schools are inflating grades too.
At least 10 law schools during the past two years have made their grading systems easier for their students, according to The New York Times. Some law schools, such as Harvard and Stanford, have fooled with their bell curve by switching to a modified pass/fail system, which is similar to what the law schools at University of California, Berkeley, and Yale have instituted.
What Loyola Law School Los Angeles is about to do is even more amazing. This summer, the law school is going to retroactively boost every law student's grade point average by 0.333 points. How's that for flagrant grade inflation?
Why are law schools embracing grade inflation? Apparently, they hope to give their graduates an advantage in the depressed job market. Law students at schools where easy "A's" are plentiful could have an easier time finding a job at a law firm than at schools where grade inflation is taboo.
As a skeptic of higher-ed practices, I'd have to offer my own reason for law school grade inflation. The annual price tags at today's best law schools, i.e. Yale ($48,340), Stanford ($44,121), Harvard ($43,900), are too high for wannabe lawyers to gamble on earning "B's" or, shudder "C's." I can't blame students for shopping for law schools where the institutions' high reputations are matched by their equally high grade point averages. To compete for these students, law schools are no doubt feeling the pressure to dumb down their grading systems.
This sad reality sure isn't going to make me feel good the next time I go searching for a lawyer. And I can't help wondering what Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. would have to say about this.
Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and she also writes for TheCollegeSolutionBlog. Follow her on Twitter.
Grade inflation image by .mary. CC 2.0.