Rojstaczer and Healy state:
Even if grades were to instantly and uniformly stop rising, colleges and universities are, as a result of five decades of mostly rising grades, already grading in a way that is well divorced from actual student performance, and not just in an average nationwide sense.
Taylor notes (see here)
Like so many other bad habits, grade inflation is lots of fun until someone gets hurt. Students are happy with higher grades. Faculty are happy not quarreling with students about grades...
To me, the real and practical problem of grade inflation is that it causes students to alter their choices, away from fields with tougher grading, like the sciences and economics, and toward fields with easier grading.
