Inflated Grades, Inflated Enrollment, and Inflated Budgets: An Analysis and Call for Review at the State Level

Reports of the past 13 years that call attention to deficient academic standards in American higher education are enumerated. Particular attention is given the Wingspread Group's recent An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education. Low academic standards, grade inflation, and budgetary incentives for increased enrollment are analyzed and a call is made for research at the state level. Reported trends in achievement and GPAs are extrapolated to Tennessee and combined with local data to support the inference that 15% of the state's present day college graduates would not have earned a diploma by mid 1960s standards. ; https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/usf_EPAA/1288/thumbnail.jpg