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Authored by David Glasser via The College Fix,

Citing a wrongheaded “GPA fixation,” Western Oregon University leaders have announced plans to abolish D- and F grades for students…

They will replace them with “no credit” in an effort to support student success and encourage struggling undergrads to continue their education despite obstacles, they said.

The public university announced in a news release this month the changes would start in the fall.

Coll, who took the job as provost in June 2023, said in the news release that “GPAs will now be a true reflection of student success and course mastery; failures will no longer mask the demonstrated abilities of our students when they pass courses.”

The news release stated that “the institutional academic grading regulation will reflect a grade range of A through D; the letter grades of D- and F will be replaced with No Credit (NC) for undergraduate students.”

The move comes as data from the school shows that 65 percent of freshmen who drop out of WOU have earned at least one “F,” Inside Higher Ed reported.

Western Oregon University acknowledged students receiving “no credit” are significantly more likely to continue with their education than those who fail classes, leading some to accuse the school of allowing “grade inflation” to occur, according to Inside Higher Ed.

In a statement to The College Fix, Coll resisted this characterization.

But the center-right Oregon Association of Scholars, a branch of the National Association of Scholars, said the policy raises “several concerns.”

The topic of grade inflation remains a pressing concern in higher education today.

In December 2023, it was revealed that 79 percent of the grades given out at Yale University in the 2022-23 academic year were As.

At Harvard, an identical 79 percent of grades were As in the 2020-21 academic year, an increase of over 20 percent in the last decade.

“Mean grades on a four-point scale were 3.80 in the 2020-21 academic year, up from 3.41 in 2002-03,” the Harvard Crimson reported.