In the article, “College Students Need to Toughen Up, Quit Their Grade Whining,” Robert

Schlesinger has touched the issue of grade inflation in colleges and its negative impact on

students’ expectations for the effort they put. Previously, things were different. Only a

spectacular performance would add up to an A grade; but this is no longer in practice

(Schlesinger, 2009). Adequate performance would result in a C grade, but now B grade is the

new norm for the same effort. Dean James Hogge believes that students take effort and grades

interchangeably. A student who produces an unsatisfactory grade by working hard should not be

rewarded over a student who gets A grade with little effort. If this practice normalizes, our

institutions will render their students incapable of dealing with real world’s criteria of effort and

reward. In real world, hard work is often not easy to measure and one may be left behind in life

because of their comfort in getting favors in exchange to their excuses. The grade which was

meant to uplift the students, ends up degrading them in practical world.

An average grade may seem unpleasant on one’s transcript, but it is our school life that trains us

for the real world. If we are caught up with our desires to exchange quality grades with our

inferior work, our minds will get mapped for justifying poor work at the expense of work ethics.

It is our knowledge that defines us and knowledge is what shapes our character and morals. If

our morals and work ethics are to be stained with asking for lame favors; what use is our

knowledge of? Moreover, companies looking for employees look for candidates who are well

versed in their knowledge and abilities. “Entering the real world with an inaccurate sense of their

abilities and a feeling that their work should be judged by their own estimation of how much

effort it involved only bodes for troubles ahead” (Schlesinger, 2009). It is sometimes logical to

contemplate on the necessity of a work life balance and the struggle one has to go through when

they do not get the results that they had desire. But, imagine what would happen if an engineer,
who got good grades only because of hard work despite showing poor results, gets to build a

bridge with a daily traffic in thousands? Or what would happen if a similar student gets a job as

heart surgeon. Can a patient’s death be justified by a poor doctor’s hard work? Grading is a

mechanism to filter out the superior from the inferior and if someone wants to be a part of the

former, they would follow a path that leads to improvement. Hard work must be encouraged, but

its share in the overall grading should be kept relatively minimal to the quality of work. It’s time

that we stop buying the idea of sympathizing with those who want to twist the grading

mechanism to their own end and stop them from seizing the genuine right of others.

References:

Schlesinger, Robert. “College Students Need to Toughen Up, Quit Their Grade Whining.” U.S.

News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 19 Feb. 2009,

www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/02/19/college-students-need-to-

toughen-up-quit-their-grade-whining. Accessed 3 August 2017