#4: The Law of Grade Inflation: It's A Two-Way Street

The B+ is like known physical universe: it's huge, amorphous and expanding infinitely in all directions. The pressures for this expansion is the flaming controversy over grade inflation, a conflagration of solar proportions that has swelled passions all over campus.

Everyone knows about the upward pressure exerted by grade inflation. In 1996, only 19 percent of all grades awarded were B+'s; by 1991, that number had jumped by four percentage points. In 1996, grades below a B+ made up 43 percent of the total; 25 years before, they accounted for only 35 percent.

What isn't discussed, however, is the downward pressure on grades exerted by grade-inflation paranoia. "The B+ is kind of caught between the crossfire of this," Lump says. "It's used in response to upward grade inflation, and it's also used in grade deflation. You're trying to deflate grades, so you give someone a B+. You know they're doing work that in another class might get them an A or an A-, [but] you can get away with that. Whereas if you give them, like, a B, they might seriously start to think they'd been screwed. It's easier to justify a B+; that's the crux of it."

Una Jain '94, a government concentrator, concurs with Lump. She recalls the semester when she took a course in political philosophy taught by Mansfield, and claims, "In that class, TF's gave a lot more B+'s than A-'s when A-'s were deserved."

Few professors of TFs will admit that they award a surfeit of B+'s just to protect themselves. But some come dangerously close. "I know there's been a lot of hoopla around here about grade inflation," says Saivetz, "so I hesitate to give out lots of A's and A-'s."