Crapademia, No. 79: The Higher Education System That Rates All Students Above Average

British university degree exam results are ranked on a six-point scale: First, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third, Pass and Fail. In my day, first class degrees were somewhat rare. In my class of over 100, just one first class degree was awarded (mine — to take this opportunity to boast of the fact, albeit anonymously). Of upper seconds, I recall only a couple. So the lower three grades accounted for well over 90% of the class (good folks, incidentally, one of whom was recently awarded a knighthood by her Majesty the Queen). Today, apparently, things are different, with 78% of British university students graduating with a first or upper second class degree.

What makes this vast improvement in university grades over a period of 50 years particularly remarkable is that, over that period of time, the proportion of the school-leaving population receiving a university education has increased from two or three percent to probably more than half today. In other words, the majority of students, including a substantial number who must as a matter of logical necessity be of below average academic ability, are being graduated by the British universities as scholars of high academic standing. How can that be possible? It is an obvious absurdity beyond the comprehension, apparently, of our academic elite.

Apparently, some universities in Britain have attempted to deal with grade inflation by creating a new grade above First Class, namely First Class Starred. But why only one star? Why not have five classes denoted by one to five stars, while dropping the traditional classification with its weird segregation of the second class into uppers and lowers, thereby, presumably, to save the lowers from the humiliation of being classified as Third Class, while allowing those of the fourth class to pass for Third Class, and those of the Fifth Class to pass as having, well, just passed.

Whether new nomenclature would put an end to ludicrous grade inflation is open to question. However, it would certainly seem better to graduate with a single star than a mere pass, while two stars seems very promising compared with "a Third."

Related:

CanSpeccy: The Rot at the Head of the University