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What a diploma measures when A’s are the new normal

by Jeffrey Janik, opinion contributor - 10/31/26 9:00 AM ET

by Jeffrey Janik, opinion contributor - 10/31/26 9:00 AM ET

A frame for a Harvard University diploma is displayed at a store, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Early decision applications are going out this fall, most of them due by mid-November , and the families sending them are committing to a very large bill. What they receive at the end of four years is a transcript and a diploma, and it is fair to ask what those two documents now report.

Two issues answer the question, and they run in opposite directions.

The first is grades. Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy collected grading records from American colleges and universities going back to 1940 . In 1960, they found , C was the most common grade in the country, and D’s and F’s together outnumbered A’s.…