Garrison Keiller of NPR's "Prairy Home Companion" fame has the tag line, "Where all our kids are above average." It seems the "Lake Wobegone Effect" is spreading.

Here's an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post today by a Duke University professor. As someone who teaches computer science classes, I've encountered pressure to give higher grades than I believe the students deserve. I can't help but wonder how prospective employers will evaluate new graduates when, at quite a few schools, a B is the minimum grade given.

How rare is the C in college? The data indicate that not only is C an endangered species but that B, once the most popular grade at universities and colleges, has been supplanted by the former symbol of perfection, the A.



For example, at Duke, which all evidence indicates is not a "leader" in grade inflation -- by a long shot -- C's now make up less than 10 percent of all grades. In 1969 the C was a respectable thing, given more than one-quarter of the time. A's overcame B's to reach the top of the charts in grade popularity in the early 1990s.

At Pomona College, C's are now less than 4 percent of all grades. About half of all grades at Pomona, Duke, Harvard and Columbia are in the A range. State schools are not immune to this change. At the University of Illinois, A's constitute more than 40 percent of all grades and outnumber C's by almost three to one. (More information on this subject can be found at www.gradeinflation.com.)

This trend of the dominance of the A and the diminution of the C began in the 1960s, abated somewhat in the '70s and came back strong in the '80s. The previous signs of academic disaster, D and F, went by the wayside in the Vietnam era, when flunking out meant becoming eligible for the draft. At Duke, Pomona, Harvard and elsewhere, D's and F's combined now represent about 2 percent of all grades given.