The 2023 PISA results testify that the academic performances of 15-year-old students keep declining and still, grades at higher education levels remain constant or growing. This is the result of a widely spread phenomenon among European universities called “Grade Inflation” or the tendency of the grading practices to become increasingly lenient over time. The problem has recently reached an upper level during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, “tolerance” or “grade leniency” were specifically asked by academic institutions in these times, leading to important consequences on students and universities. This paper aims to answer three research questions. First, what is the magnitude of grade inflation regardless of the pandemic? Second, what are the consequences of the leniency policy during COVID-19 on grade inflation? Third, what are the consequences of the leniency policy during COVID-19 on students’ outcomes? To answer these, we will use the personal information and the exam results of almost 29,000 students following among 2000 courses in a top comprehensive European university. Thanks to panel data fixed effects models, we find an inflation between 0.012-0.024 Standard Deviation (SD) through years, with an important raise of the grades around 0.04-0.13 SD during the two years of the pandemic. We conduct a Coarsened Exact Matching analysis to control for the fact that students' ability changes through time and to differentiate strong from weak individuals. It appears that only weak students benefit from the grade inflation, with a significant increase of 0.1 real value point each year.

Authors:
Maxime François, KU Leuven, Belgium
Kristof De Witte, KU Leuven, Belgium

About the Presenter(s)
Mr Maxime François is PhD candidate in Economics from the KU Leuven university, Belgium. His research focus on the Economics of Education and particularly on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education outcomes.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxime-fran%C3%A7ois-405771210/

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maxime-Francois-4

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