A record number of California high school students are receiving A’s in high school even while actual achievement is decreasing. While it lifts a certain amount of academic stress off of the backs of students, this issue has ignited a debate on whether too many students are getting A’s, a concept called grade inflation.
There are two distinct types of grade inflation: longitudinal and cross sectional.
Longitudinal grade inflation is when students’ average grades increase over time in a comparable context — essentially, it’s getting easier to get an excellent grade.
Grade inflation can also be observed cross sectionally when it’s much easier to get a high grade in a specific class, high school or college than it is in a comparable group for the same amount of achievement.
High school grade point average (GPA) is a widely referenced measure that shows significant grade inflation over time. According to the Higher Education Research Institute at University of California Los Angeles, the number of students reporting an A+, A-, or A average in high school increased from 19.9 percent to 84.7 percent from 1968 to 2025.
Advanced Placement (AP) test scores also experienced a steep rise, specifically from 2017 to 2025, when the mean score increased from 2.86 to 3.24, after a decade of steady mean scores. This increase is particularly surprising, because during the same time frame, 12th grade proficiency rates in subjects like math decreased from 153 to 147 between 2013 and 2024.
Mean scores on the American College Test (ACT) also experienced a decline between 2017 and 2024 from 21 to 19.4, a period of time when the test was not changed significantly.
This baffling decline in 12th grade proficiency rates and ACT scores and concurrent increase in GPAs and AP scores could be explained by longitudinal grade inflation — students are getting better grades over time without an increased understanding of academic material.
“There has been a general redefinition of what grades represent,” Berkeley High School chemistry teacher Aaron Glimme, said, “In the 90s it was sort of a very standard curve-based (system). There’s been a general trend to think more about a series of standards that we want people to learn and the grade should reflect progress towards that, not comparing student to student. That has overall led to an increase in grades, but I think it more accurately reflects how well students know the material we’re asking them to learn.”
There also may be an explanation for why AP test scores have increased in recent years.
According to the College Board, AP test scores are supposed to be what a student would have gotten in an equivalent college class. Glimme said that after students had taken and failed the AP exam, they were passing their college classes, and just in general getting higher scores in the class in college.
The College Board recalibrated the scoring of nine high-volume AP tests because they concluded that the test was more difficult than the “actual level of college requirements,” which caused pass rates to dramatically increase.
“I know some college professors who have moved more to a standards-based grading, like I have moved to in high school,” Glimme said.
This seems to be the case, as GPAs at four-year universities increased from 2.8 to 3.2 from 1983 to 2013, according to gradeinflation.com.
If AP test scores are calibrated to college grades, this could mean that AP grade inflation is driven in part by college-level grade inflation.
Grade inflation may deliver a short-term boost to student confidence and morale, but can have negative consequences over the long term.
First, inflated grades convey to students that they are doing above average in school even when they may be struggling with comprehension of the course material. It also doesn’t set people up to navigate failures and learn from mistakes.
BHS World History teacher Joseph Smith said, “(When) we (cheapen) our curriculum to make sure that all our kids are getting A’s, we’re undermining the system itself. Those kids whose grades are being inflated, they’re getting hurt in the long run. They haven’t learned the skills and the content that’s actually required to pass that class and to move on to the next.”
Additionally, when a large percentage of students get A’s, it makes it much more difficult to identify high-performing students. This makes review of college applications much harder for the universities.
“We don’t have a common understanding in the U.S. of what a grade means, which makes it very difficult to compare,” Glimme said.
This leads colleges to focus more on other factors in their admissions process, such as standardized test scores or essays — both flawed due to the wealth disparities that they perpetuate.
If GPAs were a reliable way to track performance, they’d be an accurate assessment of a student’s learning. Unfortunately, grade inflation is so ubiquitous that GPAs continue to lose value.
In addition to all of these effects, grade inflation also has real economic consequences on the students. According to a report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, if one teacher inflated grades by one standard deviation, it would decrease the class’s future earnings by $213,872 per year of grade inflation.
Grade inflation is widely documented; however, no real action has been taken to contain it. It requires a systemic reboot because one school taking independent action can hurt its own students.
For example, if BHS deflates grades, then students will have a lower GPA, hurting their chances of getting accepted into universities. Those who do get into top colleges are arriving unprepared despite near-perfect grades. College professors are having to spend time teaching middle school math to students in calculus classes.
Therefore, administrators across the nation must act now to create a sustainable solution that aims to measure student achievement consistently across classes, schools, and academic years.
