Harvard’s new cap on ‘A’ grades is doomed to fail

Harvard University’s decision to cap the share of A grades awarded in undergraduate courses reflects a growing frustration with grade inflation—a systemic issue that has quietly undermined the integrity of higher education for decades. While the move may seem like a bold attempt to restore rigor, it is ultimately a flawed intervention because it treats the symptom rather than the disease. Grades, as research has long shown, were never designed to be precise measures of academic achievement. Instead, they evolved into a currency of prestige, where high marks function as a signaling mechanism to competitive graduate programs and employers. By capping A grades, Harvard risks creating perverse incentives, such as grade deflation gamesmanship or the devaluation of rigorous courses where high standards are already common. The policy also ignores the broader cultural shift in academia, where faculty face pressure to inflate grades to maintain student satisfaction ratings—a phenomenon exacerbated by the rise of online learning and the consumerist framing of education. This isn’t the first time a top institution has tried to rein in grade inflation. Princeton attempted a similar cap in 2004, only to abandon it after a decade due to faculty resistance and unintended consequences, such as grade compression in STEM fields where mastery is harder to quantify. Harvard’s move may likewise falter unless it addresses the deeper structural issues: the lack of standardized assessment tools, the variability in course difficulty, and the absence of a shared definition of what constitutes "excellent" work. Without these, any numerical cap will feel arbitrary, inviting gaming of the system or pushing students toward courses where A’s are easier to attain. The bigger question is whether elite institutions like Harvard can—or even should—resist the broader trend of credential inflation. As the job market grows more saturated, the signaling power of a Harvard degree itself is being tested. If grades become less reliable, will employers double down on alternative metrics, like portfolios or competency-based assessments? Or will they simply adjust their expectations downward, rendering the fight over A grades moot? The failure of Harvard’s policy may not be in its execution, but in its fundamental misunderstanding of what grades are supposed to represent in the first place.