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Grade Inflation in US Colleges: 70 Years of Rising GPAs
Updated 4 October 2026 · All institutional figures re-verified against primary documents on that date
C was the most common grade on US campuses for over fifty years. By 1973 the average student at a four-year college was at 2.9, and by 2013 at about 3.15, with 45% of all letter grades awarded as A. A is now the most common grade at American universities, so a 3.5 today is not the same as a 3.5 twenty years ago. Below is every dated national figure a named source publishes, the institutional detail, and what it means for a student now. Nobody publishes a national average for 2026, and this page does not invent one.
2.9
Average four-year student, 1973
gradeinflation.com
3.15
Average college student, 2013
87 institutions, gradeinflation.com
45%
Share of A-F letter grades that were A, 2013
30% by 1973, twice the pre-1960s share
Historical Timeline of Grade Inflation
- Before the 1960sC most common
C was the most common grade on US campuses, and had been for over fifty years. No national GPA figure is published for this period.
gradeinflation.com
- 19732.9
End of the Vietnam-era rise. Grades rose about 0.4 points over the era; A's became twice as common as before the 1960s, reaching 30% of all A-F grades.
gradeinflation.com
- Mid-1970s to mid-1980sFlat
Inflation waned from the mid-1970s and resurfaced in the mid-1980s.
gradeinflation.com
- Late 1980s onward+0.1 per decade
The consumer era. Rising at roughly a quarter of the Vietnam-era pace, with A's up about five to six percentage points per decade.
gradeinflation.com
- 1992-933.17
Mean cumulative GPA of bachelor's degree recipients, self-reported. Graduates only, so it runs above a whole-population mean.
NCES 96-158, Table 2
- Mid-to-late 1990sA most common
A becomes the most common grade at an average four-year campus, and at a typical community college.
gradeinflation.com
- 1999-20003.16
Mean cumulative GPA of bachelor's degree recipients. The last national mean NCES has published.
NCES 2003-165, Table 5
- 20133.15
Average college student, across 87 four-year institutions that publish or supply grade data. 45% of all A-F letter grades were A's. Private-college GPAs ran over 0.2 points above public ones.
gradeinflation.com
- After 2013Not published
No multi-institution national measurement has been published since. Figures circulating for 2026 trace to secondary sites with nothing primary behind them, so this page does not carry one.
| When | National figure | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| Before the 1960s | C most common | C was the most common grade on US campuses, and had been for over fifty years. No national GPA figure is published for this period. |
| 1973 | 2.9 | End of the Vietnam-era rise. Grades rose about 0.4 points over the era; A's became twice as common as before the 1960s, reaching 30% of all A-F grades. |
| Mid-1970s to mid-1980s | Flat | Inflation waned from the mid-1970s and resurfaced in the mid-1980s. |
| Late 1980s onward | +0.1 per decade | The consumer era. Rising at roughly a quarter of the Vietnam-era pace, with A's up about five to six percentage points per decade. |
| 1992-93 | 3.17 | Mean cumulative GPA of bachelor's degree recipients, self-reported. Graduates only, so it runs above a whole-population mean. |
| Mid-to-late 1990s | A most common | A becomes the most common grade at an average four-year campus, and at a typical community college. |
| 1999-2000 | 3.16 | Mean cumulative GPA of bachelor's degree recipients. The last national mean NCES has published. |
| 2013 | 3.15 | Average college student, across 87 four-year institutions that publish or supply grade data. 45% of all A-F letter grades were A's. Private-college GPAs ran over 0.2 points above public ones. |
| After 2013 | Not published | No multi-institution national measurement has been published since. Figures circulating for 2026 trace to secondary sites with nothing primary behind them, so this page does not carry one. |
Sources: gradeinflation.com (Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy; last substantively updated March 2016), NCES 96-158 and NCES 2003-165. All read on 4 October 2026. The two kinds of figure are not one series: gradeinflation.com covers all students, the NCES means cover graduates only.
Institutional Spotlight
Harvard University
A grades reached 60.2% of all grades awarded
The October 2025 FAS report Re-Centering Academics at Harvard College states that "in 2005, As accounted for 24% of all grades awarded in Harvard College; in 2015, for 40.3%; in 2025, for 60.2%", sourced to the FAS Office of Institutional Research. A separate February 2026 grading proposal reports that "two-thirds of letter grades issued are straight A's and almost 85% are A-range grades (A or A-minus)"; note the different denominator, letter grades only, which is why that share is higher than 60.2%. No academic year is attached to the 85% figure in the source. In 2013 Dean Jay M. Harris told the faculty that the median grade was an A-minus and the most frequently awarded grade a straight A. In May 2026 the faculty voted 458 to 201 to limit A grades to 20% of a course's undergraduate enrolment plus four more students, with A-minuses explicitly not capped; the proposal's own arithmetic puts the effective share of A's at about 34%. It takes effect in the fall of 2027.
Yale University
78.97% of grades were A or A-minus
From Ray C. Fair's Grade Report Update: 2022-2023 (November 2023), continuing the work of Yale's ad hoc grading committee: "The percent A's and A-'s is now 78.97 versus 72.95 in 2018-2019. Since 2010 the percent A's and A-'s has gone from 67.23 percent to 78.97 percent." A's alone reached 58.26%, so the median Yale College grade is now an A, and the mean GPA 3.70. The denominator excludes Credit, Satisfactory and Withdrawal, which matters when comparing against figures quoted as a share of all grades. The peak was 81.97% in 2020-21. This is a faculty publication rather than a registrar one, and 2022-23 is the most recent year it covers.
University of Virginia
Undergraduate cumulative GPA averaged 3.61
UVA represents the trend reaching top public universities. The figure is the cumulative GPA across all undergraduates in all schools and years, not a graduating-class or single-college number, and comes from the Office of Institutional Research and Analytics as reported in March 2026. It was around 3.24 in 2010, with the step change at 2019-20. A 3.61 average means a B+ is below average at the institution.
Princeton University
A-range targets of 35% and 55%, removed in 2014
The policy the faculty adopted in April 2004 "recommended that, over time, each department award no more than 35% of A-range grades for course work and no more than 55% of A-range grades for junior and senior independent work". Two details are routinely lost: it covered the whole A range (A+, A and A-minus), not just straight A's, and it set departmental targets over time rather than a per-course cap. The August 2014 review committee found the numbers "too often misinterpreted as quotas" and recommended removing them; the faculty voted to do so on 6 October 2014, replacing them with department-developed grading standards. The grading policy itself was not abandoned, the numerical targets were.
Wellesley College
Course-mean ceiling of B+ (3.33), rescinded in 2019
Wellesley's registrar states plainly that "Wellesley's 2004 Grading Policy was rescinded Fall 2019", so the cap frequently cited as still running is not in force. While it ran, from April 2004 to May 2019, it read: "The mean grade in 100-level and 200-level courses with 10 or more students should be no higher than 3.33 (B+)." It covered introductory and intermediate courses, excluded courses under ten students and all 300-level work, and was a ceiling on the course mean rather than a quota on A's: the College "specifically chose not to adopt a grading policy that strictly limits the number of A's in each class". It has been replaced by an annual departmental review of grading practices.
Why Grade Inflation Happened
Student Evaluations Tied to Tenure
When student course evaluations became factors in tenure and promotion decisions, professors faced incentives to grade more leniently. Studies show a correlation between higher grades and better evaluations, regardless of learning outcomes.
Competition for Students
As higher education became more competitive, schools discovered that students transfer to and prefer institutions where grades are higher. Higher GPAs also improve employment and graduate school statistics, which factor into rankings.
COVID-Era Policy Changes
COVID-19 led to widespread pass/fail options, extended deadlines, and lenient grading policies. Many of these accommodations were never fully reversed. The shift to remote learning made traditional assessment more difficult, further inflating grades.
Adjunct Faculty Incentives
Adjunct professors (who now teach over 50% of college courses) depend on student evaluations and enrollment for continued employment. This creates strong incentives to grade easily, as poor evaluations can mean losing their position.
Reform Efforts
Harvard (approved May 2026, effective fall 2027): After the October 2025 FAS report found A grades at 60.2% of all grades awarded, up from 24% in 2005, Harvard's faculty voted 458 to 201 in May 2026 to limit A grades to 20% of a course's undergraduate enrolment plus four more students. A-minuses are explicitly not capped, and the proposal's own arithmetic puts the effective share of A's at about 34% rather than 20%. In the same session the faculty voted 498 to 157 to compute internal College honors and prizes from a student's average percentile rank rather than GPA. It is the most significant grade deflation effort by a top university in decades.
Princeton (2004-2014, targets removed): Princeton's decade-long experiment set departmental targets of 35% A-range grades in coursework and 55% in independent work. The 2014 review committee recommended removing them because they were \"too often misinterpreted as quotas\" and added stress to students' lives, and the faculty voted them out that October. The wider concern, that Princeton students were disadvantaged against peers at schools without similar policies, is the central challenge of grade deflation: unilateral action penalizes your own students.
Wellesley (2004-2019, rescinded): Wellesley's B+ ceiling on the mean grade in 100- and 200-level courses with ten or more students ran for fifteen years, one of the longest anti-inflation policies on record. The registrar states it was rescinded in the fall of 2019, replaced by an annual departmental review of grading practices rather than a numeric ceiling. That it did not survive is itself the point: even the best-documented unilateral policies have tended to lapse.
The core problem: Grade inflation is a collective action problem. No school wants to deflate grades unilaterally because it puts their students at a competitive disadvantage. Meaningful reform would require coordinated action across many institutions, which has proven politically impossible.
What This Means for Students
Your GPA in Historical Context
Grades have risen by about 0.14 points a decade over fifty years, so the same number sat at a different point in the distribution for an earlier cohort: the average four-year student was at 2.9 in 1973 and at about 3.15 by 2013. When you see older advice saying “a 3.0 is good,” remember that the scale has shifted. A precise percentile equivalence across decades would be a guess, because no one publishes a national GPA percentile table.
Major Matters More Than Ever
As absolute GPA numbers lose meaning, the major carries some extra signal, though less than is usually claimed: the last national per-field means NCES published ran only from 3.06 to 3.34, with mathematics highest. It is worth naming your major when you give a GPA. It is not worth assuming a reader will discount half a grade point for it.
Test Scores as Deflators
Standardized tests (SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT) serve as calibration tools because they are graded consistently across institutions. When grades are inflated, test scores become relatively more important for distinguishing candidates.
Holistic Review Increases
As GPA becomes less discriminating, graduate programs and employers rely more on other factors: course rigor, recommendation letters, research experience, work history, and personal statements. This makes the whole application more important.