AI Is a Major Cause of 'Grade Inflation'

A grades are suddenly multiplying in certain college classes, and a new study points the finger squarely at AI. A University of California, Berkeley study analyzed more than 500,000 grades from 2018 to 2025 at a large Texas public university and found that, after ChatGPT's late-2022 debut, courses heavy on writing and coding handed out about 30% more A's than before—while A-minuses and B-pluses dropped, the Wall Street Journal reports. Those "AI-exposed" classes, common in humanities and engineering, saw especially sharp jumps when they relied on take-home work. The paper's author, Igor Chirikov, says the pattern suggests students are leaning on generative AI rather than suddenly learning more.

"As much as AI is helping people become more productive, to produce more, I think it may harm their learning," Chirikov says. The "grade inflation" is colliding with a job market in which employers are once again leaning on GPA. The share of companies using GPA in hiring has climbed back to 42%, and nearly a quarter of GPA-requiring postings on Handshake now demand at least a 3.5, the Journal reports. Yet elite schools, including Harvard and Yale, are openly questioning whether grades still reflect learning, with Harvard weighing a cap on A grades.

Chirikov warns that an A may now signal access to powerful tools or skill at using them, not underlying ability—prompting some professors to shrink the weight of homework and boost in-class exams to keep AI at bay. Chirikov, however, says that approach has its limits. "Not all skills can be meaningfully evaluated under exam conditions: the ability to produce a well-researched essay, develop a software project, or conduct an empirical analysis requires sustained engagement that timed in-person assessments cannot capture," he writes. "Restricting assessments to formats that are AI-proof risks measuring a narrower set of capabilities than the ones courses are designed to develop, potentially undermining the learning goals that graded work is meant to serve.