The 2025 Discourse About Grade Inflation Deserves a C

The price of groceries and other necessities isn’t the only thing subject to inflation. As we close out the year, a spate of news stories has focused on reports that grades given to college students have soared in recent years, even as evidence mounts that a growing number of freshmen are showing up for college ill-prepared in basic subjects like math.

Critics have predictably framed the problem in classic culture war terms, accusing students of being “snowflakes” who can no longer tolerate anything less than an A. But that ignores the fact that the problem has been over half a century in the making, one born of longstanding forces beyond the ability of any single college or university to fix.