Higher education is mired in a PR crisis. Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has targeted the nation’s most elite institutions, including the Ivy League. The cracks first appeared during campus protests over the war in Gaza, throwing the leadership lapses and internal tensions of colleges and universities into clear view.
Last year, Yale University President Maurie McInnis asked a group of faculty to find out why the university has grown so unpopular in the public eye. Their 20 recommendations match what many critics have echoed for years, suggesting everything from tamping down on grade inflation to addressing opaque admissions standards.
“Our committee’s work brought us face-to-face with some of higher education’s greatest challenges and blind spots,” the report reads.
Among the 20 recommendations, which span everything from protecting free speech, supporting “open minds,” and tamping down on devices in classrooms, the committee called on university faculty to “grade like we mean it.” Grade inflation took to the national spotlight after Trump pushed a crackdown on the practice, tying federal funding to whether universities modify grading practices.
“Decades of inflation and compression have rendered the college grading system almost meaningless as an academic measure,” the report reads.
The committee recommended a 3.0 mean grade, or a similar class-wide average, as well as devising a percentile ranking, to mitigate grade inflation on campus.
The report also found certain undergraduate admissions practices appeared unfair to the public, specifically the preferential treatment of certain applicants, including legacies, varsity athletes, and children of faculty, staff, and donors.
“The current system of preferences for certain groups of applicants,” the report reads, “distorts the admissions process by reducing the number of slots available to high-achieving applicants who do not fit into one of the favored categories.”
The committee’s recommendation? Go back to the basics: Give a floor for academic achievement, such as a minimum SAT score, shedding other tangential qualifications.
“It should only use criteria for admission that it is willing to describe publicly and defend openly,” the report reads.
