Harvard College faculty have approved a strict cap on top marks, voting to limit A grades to no more than 20% of those awarded in undergraduate courses.
According to Just The News, roughly 70% of faculty backed the measure, a striking rebuke of the academic grade inflation that has become commonplace at elite universities. The policy, set to take effect in the fall of 2027, is expected to sharply reduce student GPAs at the Ivy League institution, where inflated grades have long masked meaningful distinctions in performance.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that in 2025, an extraordinary 60% of all grades given to Harvard undergraduates were As, a figure more reminiscent of participation trophies than rigorous evaluation. A separate report released in October showed that A grades made up 40% of all marks in 2015, up from just 24% in 2005, underscoring a steady drift away from traditional academic standards.
For decades, grade inflation has been a collective-action problem: Everyone saw it, but no one faculty member could fix it alone, the grading subcommittee said in a statement, acknowledging that individual professors lacked the leverage to reverse the trend on their own. The new cap effectively forces a campus-wide reset, aligning grading more closely with merit and restoring some measure of accountability in an environment often dominated by progressive pressures for equity over excellence.
Students, however, appear far less enthusiastic about the reform, with a February survey finding that nearly 85% of Harvard students opposed the policy. Their resistance highlights a broader cultural divide in higher education, where many young adults have grown accustomed to inflated evaluations, while a growing number of educatorsand many conservativesargue that honest grading is essential to preserving academic integrity and preparing graduates for a competitive, real-world marketplace.
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