The Alan Greenspan of Grade Inflation

We’re sorry to report that the longest running one-man war against declining academic standards has ended in a cease-fire, as distinguished scholar and occasional contributor to this magazine Harvey Mansfield told his Harvard students on February 1 that he would henceforth give them two grades. One of these would be a high grade for the official transcript. The unofficial one would be the mark he thinks they deserve. “I’m tired of punishing my students,” Mansfield, a famously tough grader, told the Chronicle of Higher Education. Half of Harvard students receive grades of A- or above, which the university maintains is not grade inflation but a reflection of the growing splendor of its student body.