College education is a costly proposition with tuition, room and

board at some colleges topping $50,000 a year. Is it worth it?

Increasing evidence suggests that it's not. Since the 1960s,
academic achievement scores have plummeted, but student
college grade point averages (GPA) have skyrocketed. In October
2001, the Boston Globe published an article entitled "Harvard's
Quiet Secret: Rampant Grade Inflation." The article reported that
a record 91 percent of Harvard University students were awarded
honors during the spring graduation. The newspaper called
Harvard's grading practices "the laughing stock of the Ivy
League." Harvard is by no means unique. For example, 80
percent of the grades given at the University of Illinois are A's and
B's. Fifty percent of students at Columbia University are on the
Dean's list. At Stanford University, where F grades used to be
banned, only 6 percent of student grades were as low as a C. In
the 1930s, the average GPA at American colleges and
universities was 2.35, about a C plus; today the national average
GPA is 3.2, more than a B.

Today's college students are generally dumber than their

predecessors. An article in the Wall Street Journal (1/30/97)
reported that a "bachelor of Arts degree in 1997 may not be the
equal of a graduation certificate from an academic high school in
1947." The American Council on Education found that only 15
percent of universities require tests for general knowledge; only
17 percent for critical thinking; and only 19 percent for minimum
competency. According a recent National Assessment of Adult
Literacy, the percentage of college graduates proficient in prose
literacy has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent within the past
decade. Employers report that many college graduates lack the
basic skills of critical thinking, writing and problem-solving and
some employers find they must hire English and math teachers to
teach them how to write memos and perform simple
computations.

CARTOONS  | TOM STIGLICH

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What is being labeled grade inflation is simply a euphemism for
academic dishonesty. After all, it's dishonesty when a professor
assigns a grade the student did not earn. When a university or
college confers a degree upon a student who has not mastered
critical thinking skills, writing and problem-solving, it's academic
dishonesty. Of course, I might be in error calling it dishonesty.
Perhaps academic standards have been set so low that idiots
could earn A's and B's.

Academic dishonesty and deception go beyond fraudulent

grades. "Minding the Campus" is a newsletter published by the
Manhattan Institute. Edward Fiske tells a chilling tale of deception
titled "Gaming the College Rankings" (9/17/09). The U.S. News
and World Report college rankings are worshiped by some
college administrators, and they go to great lengths to strengthen
their rankings. Some years ago, University of Miami omitted
scores of athletes and special admission students so as to boost
SAT scores of incoming freshmen. At least one college mailed
dollar bills to alumni with a request that they send them back to
the annual fund thereby inflating the number of alumni donors.

"Gaming the College Rankings" contains an insert by John Leo,

who is the editor of "Minding the Campus," reporting that in the
mid-1990s, Boston University raised its SAT scores by excluding
the verbal scores of foreign students whilst including their math
scores. Monmouth University simply added 200 SAT points to its
group scores. University of California reported that 34 of its
professors were members of a prestigious engineering
association when in fact only 17 of their current faculty were.
Baylor University offered students, who were already admitted to
the university, $300 in bookstore credits to take the SAT again in
the hopes of boosting Baylor's SAT averages.

Academic dishonesty, coupled with incompetency, particularly at

the undergraduate level, doesn't bode well for the future of our
nation. And who's to blame? Most of the blame lies at the feet of
the boards of trustees, who bear ultimate responsibility for the
management of our colleges and universities.