Headline Roundup • May 21st, 2026
How Will Harvard's Cap on As Affect Students?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Faculty at Harvard University voted 70% in favor of imposing a cap on A grades, limiting professors to only giving 20% of students in a class an A.
The Details: Washington Post (Lean Left bias) framed the measure as the "most prominent symbol of a reckoning" for concern about grade inflation, which some faculty at elite universities "warn is fundamentally damaging the integrity of education." Fox News (Right) noted that school administrators first proposed this measure after a report showed 60% of grades students received at Harvard were As.
Increasing Competition, Not Quality: A survey from the Harvard Undergraduate Association showed that 85% of student respondents disapproved of the grade cap. One faculty member, writing for The Crimson, wrote that with the A-cap, "what matters is not how well a student performs, but whether they can 'outrun' the student sitting next to them." The writer also argued that the distribution of students' performance levels varies with the subject—harder classes may draw a larger population of high-performing students, therefore penalizing "ambitious students for surrounding themselves with strong classmates.
Inflation Won't Fix Itself: In a dissenting opinion, a group of student writers for The Crimson argued in favor of the grade cap, writing that the "watering down of our grading system… erodes pedagogy and cheapens the academic experience." Though this group conceded that "the 20 percent cap is arbitrary and won't fix pedagogy overnight," the group also suggested that the measure is "directionally correct" for attempting to collectively address the problem of grade inflation.
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Harvard faculty voted in favor of capping A grades at 20% on Wednesday in an effort to combat grade inflation.
"Today the Harvard faculty voted to make their grades mean what they say they mean," a statement from members of the Harvard faculty subcommittee told Fox News Digital.
"For decades, grade inflation has been a collective-action problem: everyone saw it, but no one faculty member could fix it alone," it continued. "The faculty have now taken a major step to fix it together. We are gratified that the FAS faculty...
Harvard faculty voted to cap the number of A grades given to undergraduates at about 20 percent per class, taking assertive action to reverse years of grade inflation at a time of intense scrutiny of higher education.
The vote, reported Wednesday, is the most prominent symbol of a reckoning at some elite schools concerned by the increasing number of A's — a widespread issue that some faculty members warn is fundamentally damaging the integrity of education.
