Why are more students graduating with Latin honors?

It’s a hot topic, and for some, it’s a sore subject, but it’s one that needs to be discussed.

Last year, out of 3,359 baccalaureate students graduating from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, 2,243 graduated with Latin honors. According to UP Diliman’s Information Office, 742 graduated cum laude, 1,196 graduated magna cum laude and 305 graduated summa cum laude—the biggest number of graduates to ever receive the highest honor in a single class.

This year, out of 3,511 students, 788 graduated cum laude, 1,109 graduated magna cum laude, and 286 graduated summa cum laude.

To graduate cum laude at the premier state university, your minimum weighted average grade needs to be 1.75. To graduate magna cum laude, it should be 1.45. To graduate summa cum laude, it has to be at least 1.20.

While many celebrated the achievements of the graduates, there are those who see the rise in the number of students achieving Latin honors as a cause for concern, sparking conversations about grade inflation.

Gideon Lasco wrote in an Inquirer column in February, “In 2010—the year I graduated—there were 236 magna cum laudes and 25 summa cum laudes in UP Diliman; last year, there were 1,196 magnas and 305 summas. In all, 67 percent of class 2023 had Latin honors. Such observations will doubtless be recognized by many as manifestations of ‘grade inflation’—that is, the trend of ever-increasing grades given to students in academic institutions over time.”

Defying logic

Inquirer columnist Cielito Habito wrote earlier this month, “What defies logic is how magna cum laude graduates exceeded the cum laude ones starting in 2022. Also since 2022, there are now more UP students who graduate with honors than those who do not.”

Two years ago, Randy David, who has been a faculty member at UP for over 40 years, wrote about it as well in his Inquirer column titled “The phenomenon of ‘grade inflation.’”

David recalled how, when he was a student at UP in the 1960s, “Teachers then were quite stingy with grades. In the entire Diliman campus, there would usually be no more than 20-30 cum laudes, two or three magnas, and maybe one or not even a single summa at the end of a typical academic year. The rare summas went up the stage and were greeted with rousing applause or a standing ovation by the entire graduating class. These exceptional achievers were remembered by generations of UP alumni.”

So what has changed?

“The most immediate reason is the pandemic. In UP Diliman, for example, there was an explicit rule banning grades like 4.0 (conditional failure) and 5.0 (failure) for five semesters straight at the height of the pandemic, in a bid for compassionate grading amid the health crisis,” said JC Punongbayan, assistant professor at the UP School of Economics.

“At the same time, professors have found it difficult to update or adjust their assessment tools as classes shifted online. But in fact, grade inflation has been creeping up on us since before the pandemic, and it may be due to a confluence of factors. In tertiary ed, ‘terror’ professors that like to give failing marks are rarer these days. In basic education, there’s a perverse incentive on teachers to give passing marks to just about everyone, a phenomenon called ‘mass promotion,’ even if their students don’t know how to read or do simple maths.”

Worse

Jeremaiah Opiniano, a journalism lecturer at a university in Manila, said, “Note that during the pandemic, schools diminished the number of requirements so that all of us could cope with the harrowing impacts or COVID-19 and human immobility. Thus, the chances of getting high grades increased.”

Punongbayan said, “Nearly all teachers and professors I talked to agree that grade inflation exists and has gotten worse in the past few years. One friend in a state university said that their case of grade inflation is even worse than in UP Diliman. But grade inflation goes well beyond the giving out of Latin honors. Grade inflation is arguably worse in basic education. These days, almost everyone gets recognized in moving up and graduation ceremonies. Basic education has its own grade inflation problem.”

Punongbayan has been attacked online for speaking up about the subject.

“Lots of people think that I’m outspoken on grade inflation because I begrudge graduates their Latin honors, or that I think they don’t deserve their Latin honors. In truth, I laud them for their honors. No one can take that away from them,” he told Lifestyle. “I’m just saying that grade inflation goes well beyond any single student’s achievements: It affects the entire educational system of the Philippines, from basic to tertiary education. Grade inflation is also not new, but it has accelerated of late. And the consequences are already spilling over to other areas like job markets.”

Post-study transition

This is also what worries Opiniano. “My concern is more on their post-study transition to the workplace, more than their temporary feelings of being discredited. Why? Because honor graduates will feel the pressure to prove that they are employable and credible workers. These traits are far beyond what grades they get. The pandemic yielded the issue of having not much academic exercises due to immobility. When some went to the workforce, some honor graduates felt inadequately trained.”

Punongbayan added, “Grade inflation is worrisome because grades are becoming less and less valuable as a signal of kids’ knowledge or skills. This has massive implications. For instance, teachers in higher levels of education can no longer assess their students’ abilities ex ante, and employers also lose that ability as they make hiring decisions. Grade inflation cheapens the signaling value of grades, in the same way price inflation cheapens the purchasing power of the peso.”

It’s an issue that isn’t unique to UP or the Philippines. In the United Kingdom, earlier this week, The Telegraph reported that “Top A-level results hit record high despite efforts to curb grade inflation,” with students getting 5,000 more A’s than last year.

It isn’t new either. Researchers have been studying grade inflation since the 1970s. In 2003, Valen E. Johnson published “Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education,” a book about the phenomenon that used data collected from Duke University’s 1989-1999 academic year.

“I teach at an Ivy League university. I can’t count how many colleagues have told me that they ‘just give everyone an A.’ This mindset doesn’t belong to just one instructor, department, discipline, or generation… It’s happening everywhere, and some instructors even boast of the practice,” wrote Columbia University’s Megan Maldonado just this week, in a piece for Mind the Campus called “Grade Inflation Is the New Affirmative Action.”

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“At best, grade inflation robs students of their education. At worst, it has outsized, negative consequences for students once they graduate, most especially for those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Graduates with money and well-connected families can cope with the burden of a mediocre reputation. Graduates whose futures depend entirely on their merit and perceived potential? We’ve set them back with the very degree we promised would put them ahead in life.”

Lasco wrote in his column, “The more serious critique is how grades have gotten in the way of learning itself. Grade inflation both reflects and exacerbates ‘grade consciousness,’ which means students are afraid to take academic risks such as taking a difficult course, or writing a more challenging paper; the grade becomes the end in itself, and the fulfillment of a scholarly pursuit is cast aside.”

‘Unoable’

In UP, which allows students to choose their classes and professors, there’s a term students use for professors who are known for giving good grades: “unoable”—as in, can I get a 1 (uno) from that teacher?

The Philippine Collegian, UP Diliman’s official student publication, reported that since the lifting of the university’s No-Fail Policy in 2022, almost half of all the grades given were 1.00 and 1.25. But, Reg Dipasupil writes in the article, “While some may see this data as an indication that grade inflation—the increase in the average grade given to students over time—exists, the connection remains nebulous, especially since no pre-pandemic data is available.”

We reached out to UP Diliman’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for an interview but they declined, citing the official’s full calendar due to registration week.

“Are grades now meaningless?” Habito’s Inquirer column asked. He wrote, “Grade inflation is a problem not so much because it ‘cheapens’ Latin honors and removes the scarcity value in a title that accords prestige and elite status. What should worry us more is how it is symptomatic of the more fundamental problem of grading systems ceasing to be good indicators of students’ abilities, and at worst, becoming an outright obstacle to learning. Students’ (and even their parents’) behavior has come to be directed at getting high grades rather than acquiring the relevant learning they will need to secure their future—and the two are not necessarily the same.”

Punongbayan said, “I can totally understand that people, especially students who got high grades and Latin honors, can get defensive about this issue. But I think as well that this issue needs to be addressed most of all by education policymakers, since grading systems are a powerful policy lever. How can this happen, though, if policymakers themselves are not aware of the issue, or are sweeping it under the rug? I think it’s high time for Filipinos to look at grade inflation squarely in the face, and as calmly and objectively as possible.”

Some HR practitioners have even revealed that they no longer put a lot of weight on whether an applicant graduated with honors or not because high grades are no longer a guarantee that they will perform well at work.

Opiniano said, “The real measure of professional success is one’s handling of the hard and soft skills. And many people worldwide have even skipped or have not finished school and became successful. The real world is where the real grades are handed out.”