Cambridge, MA — Harvard College's recent decision to cap the number of A grades in undergraduate courses at 20% has drawn swift criticism from education experts, who argue the policy ignores decades of research showing grades are not objective measures of learning and will likely collapse under its own weight.
The policy, approved by faculty, limits only A grades, leaving A-minuses and lower unrestricted. Proponents hail it as a necessary step to curb grade inflation, but critics say it's a distraction from deeper systemic issues universities refuse to confront.
“Grade inflation is a red herring,” said Joshua Eyler, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi and author of Failing Our Future. “Mandatory caps on A’s have failed at nearly every institution where they’ve been tried.”
Princeton University’s decade-long experiment with a similar cap—limiting A-range grades to 35%—ended in 2014 after faculty voted overwhelmingly to rescind it. The policy had sparked complaints about competitiveness, student stress, and concerns that Princeton graduates were losing ground to peers from other Ivies in job and graduate school admissions. A faculty report noted that undergraduates felt the cap made them “focused only on letter grades rather than feedback.”
Wellesley College abandoned its own rule in 2019 that required average course grades to stay at B+ or below. The pattern is clear: such policies fail to address root causes and often backfire.
Eyler argues that Harvard’s approach does nothing to improve the meaning or quality of grades. Instead, it creates artificial scarcity of the very metric institutions prize most. “There’s no better way to turn a vibrant classroom into ‘Lord of the Flies’ than to create artificial scarcity of grades,” he said.
The real opportunity, Eyler contends, lies in rethinking how universities communicate student achievement—perhaps through more detailed transcripts that highlight projects, startups, and designs. “These are the stories that say far more about a university’s value than any breakdown of individual grades,” he said.
Harvard’s move comes amid broader debates about grading standards and educational equity. The university is also facing a lawsuit over antisemitism allegations, highlighting tensions around campus governance. Meanwhile, the DNC’s post-election autopsy and ongoing IDEA funding gaps show how institutional policies often fail to deliver on promises.
Eyler urged other institutions not to follow Harvard’s lead. “The Ivies don’t represent the vast majority of colleges in this country, and emulating them rarely makes practical sense,” he said. “Harvard is running headlong into a disaster of its own making.”
