Tim Harford at the Financial Times finds le mot juste — not grade inflation, but grade distortion:
Grade distortion is a serious affair. Students and their teachers are forced to switch to grey market transactions denominated in alternative currencies: the letter of recommendation, for example. Like most alternative currencies, these are a hassle.
Grade distortions, like price distortions, destroy information and oblige people to look in strange places for some signal amid the noise. Students are judged not on their strongest subjects
One comment
Ooh, good find. I like that a lot.
It seems like a *lot* of problems come down to missing or distorted information & feedback loops.
The snarkmatrix awaits you