Those who believe that the higher education system is broken have a new piece of evidence, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal’s website—“University of Michigan Drops First-Semester Grades to ‘Curb Mental Health Crisis.’” The University will implement the program in the fall of 2027.
Pass or No Credit
The idea is that first-semester freshmen won’t receive traditional grades for their classes. Professors will still assign grades that will determine eligibility for scholarships and awards, but grade reports and transcripts will show only “pass” or “no credit.” Whether students will ever have access to the actual grades is unclear. Transfer students don’t qualify for the special treatment.
The opening page of the University’s official website took almost no notice of the change. The opening banner described a student project to construct a solar-powered water-pumping system in Tanzania. The only notice was a link to the WSJ article in the “in the news” section of the page—on the right-hand side, near the bottom.
Freshman Stress
However, a bit of diligence led to a web page of the University’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) titled “LSA First-Semester Grade Covering Pilot Program.” It gave a cursory explanation of the new policy’s purpose. “Helping all students establish early momentum has been recognized as the most important element in U-M’s campus-wide Student Success Initiative. We believe that covering grades will help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals.” According to the University, LSA is “by far” the largest college on its main campus in Ann Arbor.
There is no question that the first day at college is stressful. For many students, it is their first time living away from their parents. The general atmosphere is light-years away from that of high school.
Until recently, this difference was thought to be a good thing. Freshman year of college was supposed to be a rite of passage, a sign that childhood was in the past and full adulthood was on an ever-narrower horizon. “Establishing early momentum” was important, but most university orientation programs stipulated that achieving that goal was primarily the student’s responsibility.
Supporters
Professional opinion on the new policy is mixed. Michigan Public, an NPR-affiliated station owned by the University of Michigan, asked Rosemary Perez, an associate professor in the School of Education, who stressed the positive aspects of the change. “You hear from somebody like, ‘if I don’t get an A in this class, I’ll never be able to’—and fill in the blanks with a hundred different things—‘get into this next course, get the internship, get into graduate school, get this job I want.’ They’re already feeling that if they make one misstep, it’s just going to knock everything down.”
The WSJ turned to Michigan history professor Derek Peterson, who also saw merit in the idea. “The idea that our kids are somehow more coddled is simply not true. If we can find ways to open up space for students to experiment while also protecting their future employability, which means protecting the GPAs, I think it is a good idea.”
Contrary Opinions
Kenneth Lowande, a one-time Michigan political science professor who has recently joined the faculty at Rice University in Texas, disagrees. His evaluation was simple; it doesn’t make much difference. Grade inflation, an insidious, long-term process in which university grades have steadily increased over the last couple of decades, has made the change “largely irrelevant.”
Buttressing Professor Lowande’s evaluation, the WSJ reported that, “At the University of Michigan,…74.1% of all undergraduate grades in 2022 were an A+, A or A-. A decade earlier, that percentage was 57.6%.”
The reporters at The New York Times gathered non-faculty opinions, and these were far less sanguine. Rick Hess is director of education policy studies at the center-right American Enterprise Institute. He is blunt in his criticism. “It turns out that swaddling college students does not actually improve their mental health. It creates entitlement. It creates a lack of productive tension.” He argues that students should face greater rigor and higher expectations for long-term success.
A Therapeutic Culture
New York City psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, author of Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It’s Left Us More Anxious and Divided, also takes a more critical view. “[F]eeling bad isn’t the same thing as being unwell. I worry that therapists and institutions have blurred that distinction. College should be one of the places where young people learn that evaluation isn’t always pleasant. Those experiences can hurt, but learning that you can tolerate them and move forward prepares you for adulthood.”
When Christian civilization gave rise to the idea of the university during the medieval period, its primary task has remained the same—to prepare intelligent young people to use their intellectual gifts to improve the world around them, and thus give glory to God. Such work requires mature people with the ability to discern truth from falsehood. Training them should be the overarching goal of the University of Michigan and all of the world’s universities. Programs like this subvert that purpose. Going to college should be the last step before entering the real world, not merely another extension of childhood.
First published on TFP.org.
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