Gifted article. Pretty sad findings on the state of education for the sake of knowledge and learning from your peers at one of our country’s preeminent universities.
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You can probably thank Zuck and his F-U flip flops for contributing significantly to this.
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The median self-reported GPA in the most recent Harvard senior survey was 3.9 out of 4.0. Only 6% of Harvard seniors reported below an A/A- GPA (<3.5). While the overwhelming majority of kids at Harvard are likely outstanding students who have excellent understanding of the material, at some point, the grades stop becoming a useful metric.
The report mentions one reason some students aren’t attending or participating in class is not having read enough of assignments to make a meaningful contribution. In theory this could be improved by changing grading structure to include other factors. For example, if grade is entirely based on midterm + final, and midterm + final is curved to give the overwhelming portion of students an A; then I’d expect a good portion of students to not attend class and not do the readings/assignments.
I expect remote learning during COVID is a major contributing factor to all of above.
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Is attendance not required anymore? My D definitely had classes in college where a percentage of the grade was attendance and participation. (Class of '23).
This seems like an easy problem to fix!
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It’s amazing to me that Harvard allows students to enroll in classes that meet simultaneously. It speaks clearly that Harvard doesn’t value the classroom experience. And with this policy of course they can’t require class attendance.
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I admit I’ve never heard of a college allowing this policy before, but that may be my own ignorance. Is it common at other colleges?
Harvard may be partly to blame for encouraging student absences, with a policy that allows students to enroll in two classes that meet at the same time. Dr. Laibson tells his students that in-person learning is better than learning by video. But he also defends the double-scheduling practice because so many classes at Harvard meet at overlapping times.
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I’ve never heard of that either. Purdue’s scheduling system will not allow concurrent enrollment in overlapping classes.
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At my S23’s school (UC Berkeley), certain classes are designated “Time Conflict Enrollment Allowed,” although this doesn’t seem to be very common. I don’t know what the full policy is, but the ones I’ve seen marked this way have recorded lectures (so you can watch asynchronously), in-person discussion and/or lab sections, and everything is very well organized and available online.
Here’s an example:
- CS 61a class listing: 2025 Fall COMPSCI 61A 001 LEC 001 | UCB Class Search
- CS 61a class web site: https://cs61a.org
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According to the page at Simultaneous Enrollment – Office of Undergraduate Education , the only 4 fall classes allow simultaneous enrollment without stipulation – CS 50, CS 61, Econ 10A, and Econ 1017. There are also some language classes that permit simultaneous enrollment with stipulation, including attending discussion section; and exceptions can be made for seniors that cannot graduate on time without simultaneous enrollment.
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I am so disgusted by this. My two kids attend small liberal arts colleges and they never skip class. NO ONE skips class. The students want to be there and it’s so disrespectful to the professors and the fellow classmates not to show up.
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My S24 and I have frequently discussed how his practice of being prepared and actually attending class is such an advantage. He is at WashU, and although I don’t know any statistics, I know that he knows some students not as committed to doing that as he is. But for both competitive grading reasons and just getting the best possible education reasons, he is convinced he has the better approach (and I agree).
I guess part of the question is how much responsibility does the institution have to make sure students are not shorting themselves in terms of educational quality. I’m not sure I have an automatic answer to that question. I will admit that when I taught my own college classes, I would tell my students that no one was forcing them to attend, that I did not take attendance, but that I also would make it very clear in class what they needed to learn to do well on exams and such, answer any questions about that, and so on.
So I do feel like it is important to treat college students as adults, and explain clearly how the class works and then put it on them to decide what they want to get out of the class.
But that was also a long time ago now, and I don’t pretend to really know what it would be like teaching those classes today.
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In 2015, about 40 percent of grades awarded at the university were A’s; now the figure is about 60 percent, she said. Half of that increase happened during remote instruction.
“Students are very worried about their future, and the faculty sympathize with that,” and try to make courses less stressful, Dr. Claybaugh said. Faculty members also worry about getting negative student evaluations if they are too tough in grading, the report says.
Ugh. Can’t stress the snowflakes. 
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I don’t get it that students don’t see the value of learning from their professors and their peers in person. I guess many these days are used to counting “medals and trophies” as signs of success vs appreciating the journey. Helicopter parents and rampant grade inflation in high school are major contributors to these attitudes. My kids knew I was happy to pay for their private college costs because I believed that the time spent there learning from great professors and classmates was worth the investment. I didn’t send them there to join an IB club.
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I’m not sure how the 60% was calculated, but the usual publicly referenced sources are the faculty grading report or Harvard Crimson survey, which both suggest notably higher than 60%. Example percentages from faculty grading report are pictured below. Perhaps 60% is A, and 80% is A/A-.
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I read that and shared with my kids—one at a large flagship public U and one at a midsize private. Both like their schools.
I was also shocked that students cd sign up for overlapping classes, but when I reflected back on my experience at Yale 30+ years ago, I can’t say that my best learning occurred in the classroom. My best learning occurred writing papers, researching and honing what I wanted to say. My daughter at the private said she saw value in class attendance (tho, she admitted, her attendance might not be as good if grades didn’t have an attendance component). My son at the flagship public said he has realized that he doesn’t learn advanced math best in a classroom lecture. He still will attend, esp when he thinks the teachers are good, but he’s glad to be able to watch and replay lectures, and review class notes after, with a focus on the pieces that he struggles with.
I want to believe class attendance is important to learning but I’m not sure it was for me. My husband went to a tiny liberal school and it was definitely critical to his experience. Interestingly, I think class attendance was more important to my learning in law school—with much bigger classes. But that cd be bc I did not find reading cases to be particularly helpful to my understanding basic structures of law—so I needed the classes more!
SLACS for the win!
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This article was interesting. Harvard has a lot of problems. Glad my kids won’t be attending.
Smile and nod
And now, AI does all that for them. Harvard is doing no one any favors with this policy.
AI is an issue everywhere but this is where I can see class sizes becoming a key determinant of learning and rigor. Discussion has to become a far bigger part of the learning process and schools with small class sizes will have an advantage.
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