The Uneasy Combination Of Grade Inflation, Lax Graduation Requirements, & AI

  "AI & robots will replace all jobs" - Elon Musk speaking in May, 2024 via remote webcam during the VivaTech 2024 conference in Paris.  In October, 2025 Musk reiterated these remarks on X.   While discussing the future of automation, Musk said, "Probably none of us will have a job," adding that AI & robots will provide any goods & services anyone wants.

  "Not for most things" was Bill Gates' response in 2025 to Jimmy Fallon's question on the Tonight Show regarding whether or not human beings would be needed.  Gates' time frame was the next ten years.

Elon's & Bill's remarks above highlight one of two fundamental questions pertaining to the artificial intelligence (AI) mania that has propelled the stock market to record heights: 1) will AI wipe out all jobs?  The second fundamental question: 2) will AI transform jobs like the automobile industry did when buggy whip manufacturers learned to be auto assembly line workers?

We see in the first question that there will be people - unemployed people, & in the second there will be jobs - but do we have a sufficient number of people with knowledge & skills to fill these new & different jobs, if they do appear? 

We are not @ a good starting point to consider these two possibilities.  The ratio of job openings to the number of unemployed people started falling after March, 2022 when it stood @ 2.02.  It had dropped to 1.13 when Trump took office & he has not stopped the decline.  In Trump's 14 months in office we crossed the divide as the ratio fell to 0.92 meaning that there are now more people unemployed than there are job openings (latest comparative date: 6.95 million job openings reported on March 31 for February & 7.57 million people unemployed in February).

In addition, the labor force participation rate fell to 61.9 in March.  Discounting the Covid era of April, 2020 through December, 2021 the last time the LFPR was this low was February, 1977.

Now economics is defined as the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.

If AI wipes out all human jobs in our first question above it can fairly be implied (& Elon stated) that AI will supply everything we want & there will be no scarcity meaning there is nothing to economise.  In such a utopian world there will be no need for jobs because AI provides an effective unlimited supply of goods & services to meet our demand in which case Professor Donald Boudreaux of George Mason University points out "the prices of all goods & services would be driven to zero" & "no one would need to earn an income.  Employment as we know it would be unnecessary, as AI will have rescued humanity from scarcity."  In short, who needs a job if our demand drowns in a sea of unlimited supply provided by AI that results in no costs?

Meta Platforms' CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced he is building a "CEO agent" to help him do his job by getting him information faster.  Zuckerberg's goal is for everyone, both inside & outside Meta, to have their own AI agent.  In Zuckerbeerg's world it is easy to conjure up an army of robot agents who will eventually do the work of their masters on the road to wiping out all human jobs. 

But this utopian world will not happen overnight so we @ least have to address question 2 above in the short term.  After all, Keynes' prediction in 1930 of 15 hour work-weeks by 2030 doesn't look like it will happen & retiring @ 40 by the 1990s has already passed us by.

But sadly, every indication points to us not having a sufficient number of people with knowledge & skills to fill these new & different jobs until AI meets & then surpasses our demand.  In fact it is because we have this shortage of qualified people that businesses have been making investments in AI in the first place.  The stock market is cheering not because it sees a large rise in employment but because it sees a business world that uses metal robots as opposed to the purported human beings who have a hard time even showing up for an interview let alone doing a responsible job.

Other than the Covid era referenced above, there have been more job openings than unemployed people from January, 2018 until July, 2025.  During these seven years I have documented several times the difficulty businesses have had finding people who could do the work.  As AI started to replace people the past three years the number of job openings fell & the ratio dropped below 1.0 as mentioned above.

These are hard times for many workers & people seeking work.  Not only did the ratio of job openings to unemployed workers start to fall after March, 2022 but wage growth has been slowing since the second half of 2022.  ZipRecruiter reports that more than a quarter of people who recently changed jobs took pay cuts & 16.3% made lateral moves.  That's over 40% of job changers either treading water or losing ground.

Poor education & lack of training are @ the root of our problems as evidenced by Allysia Finley recently reporting that UC, San Diego offers a no credit freshman remedial math course targeting middle & elementary school levels - e.g., adding fractions & rounding numbers. The kicker is that 94% of the freshmen placed in that remedial math course had passed a high school advanced math class being awarded on average an "A-" grade.  Talk about grade inflation.  Wow.

Wirepoints reports on its website that in 2024 not a single student tested proficient in math in 80 Illinois schools & not one tested proficient in reading in 24 Illinois schools & yet these schools graduated nearly 70% of their students - all of them illiterate &/or innumerate.  More than 18,000 students attend zero reading & math proficiency schools in Illinois.  What's worse is that these numbers have increased since 2019 when there were 37 Illinois schools with not a single student proficient in math & 21 Illinois schools with not one who could read @ the proficient level.  The Wirepoints' website identifies all of these atrocious schools including those that fail to teach both reading & math, the enrollments, graduation rates, & operational spending per student.  And every parent of these 18,000 students let this happen to their children.  Who could blame employers for turning to AI?

None of these Illinois students could read & none of them went to college.  At the same time college graduates who can read but not necessarily do math (just look @ the results of the quizzes that I present from time to time) have their own problems - e.g., finding a job & paying down their  student debt.  Most of these problems stem from grade inflation & lax graduation requirements.  

For instance  in October, 2025 Amanda Clayburgh, Harvard Dean of Undergraduate Education, issued an internal report arguing that current grading practices @ Harvard are failing to properly evaluate students.

Dean Clayburgh's report predominantly refers to Harvard's practice of grade inflation - the distortion of grades that artificially & misleadingly raises an average student's true understanding of the course subject matter.  It results in a rise of average GPA without a corresponding increase in actual learning or mastery.  It cheats high performers by making it difficult to distinguish top performers based on grades thereby negating grades serving their intended purpose.

Key findings of the Clayburgh report: 1) More than 60% of grades given to undergraduates @ Harvard are "A"s, compared to 40% a decade ago, & 2) The median GPA @ graduation has risen to 3.83, up from 3.29 in 1985, with the median grade being an "A" @ Harvard since 2016 (meaning half the class receives an "A" or better).  The report goes over the school's grading criteria - namely what does a "C" a "B" or an "A" mean.  I saw only one reference to "D" in the entire report & none for "F".  People do fail @ things they try like going to college. 

The following grading criteria taken directly from the Clayburgh report is currently under review by Harvard STEM departments.

"C" range work is described as adequate & satisfactory comprehension of the course material & the skills needed to work with the course material but a "C" student may make some mistakes in applying concepts to familiar contexts & could struggle with applications beyond familiar ones.  When analyzing problems or data a "C" student can identify basic patterns but lacks depth & can make errors.  He can propose basic experiments or research projects that aren’t feasible & don’t include a solid understanding of key concepts.  On papers/oral presentations a "C" student can adequately explain some key ideas but fundamental aspects of work are unclear or incorrect & he often is unable to extrapolate how a concept or protocol could be applied to a new problem   

"B" range work is described as good comprehension of the course material with a good command of the skills needed to work with the course material.  A "B" student can apply concepts to familiar contexts with competence & effectively analyze complex problems or data, identifying important patterns & reaching logical conclusions.  He can miss some nuance & may make some claims that aren’t well supported.  He can propose experiments or research projects that are feasible & indicate a solid understanding of key concepts.  A "B" student can create written work/oral presentations that explain main ideas, while demonstrating solid understanding that sometimes contain inconsistencies, are overly simplistic, fail to make a compelling argument, &/or stop short of identifying new applications of concepts.

An "A-" student shows full mastery of the subject & consistently applies concepts to both familiar and new contexts.  He can thoroughly analyze complex problems or data, identifying key trends & make well-supported conclusions.  He can propose well-designed experiments or research projects that demonstrate a deep understanding of the subject.  An "A-" student can create written work or oral presentations that show good understanding of material, good communication skills, & an ability to transfer learning to new situations/domains.

An "A" student is an“extraordinary distinction.”  He can apply concepts to new contexts & develop innovative solutions while excelling in analyzing complex problems or data, uncovering subtle patterns & drawing insightful conclusions.  He can propose original experiments or research projects that show exceptional creativity or insight.  An "A" student can create written work or oral presentations with clear, insightful explanations, an awareness of the audience, & that illuminates the topic in a new way. 

The current grading system @ Harvard that awards a preponderance of "A"s ignores the above grading criteria that is under review.  It does not honor the superiority of the real "A" students.  It harms the real "A" students because it does not distinguish them from the other students.  This is a subtle way the colleges are weakening  America - by not acknowledging real excellence & making us all the same.    

Needless to say this problem does not only belong to Harvard - there is a prevalence @ colleges all across America.  Grade inflation & lax graduation requirements put college graduates @ a disadvantage just like the 18,000 Illinois students who can't read have been put @ a horrible disadvantage if they don't do something about it, like take remedial reading courses or be tutored.  Of course college graduates also have student loan debt that totals in five or six figures - & now, unable to find a job, have no way to pay that debt down.

Although grade inflation, lax graduation requirements, & AI make for an uneasy combination for most people, I know of two bright spots.  

The first bright spot is the 2026 biennial survey of the Council For Economic Education (CEE) that reports 39 states now require a personal finance course for high school graduation, with 22 of those states also mandating economics.  These mandates ensure over 13 million students will have access to a dedicated financial education course, marking a dramatic increase from just 6 states in 2019 that required a standalone, semester-long financial literacy course as a graduation requirement - Utah, Missouri, Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, & Tennessee.  CEE found that students who received mandatory financial education made better financial decisions as adults, such as managing credit card debt more effectively - A 2024 study in Delaware projected an estimated $116K lifetime benefit for each participating Delaware student.  CEE also found that Texas, California, & Indiana replaced the economics requirement with the personal finance requirement which they count as a negative - they prefer both courses be required for graduation & so do I.

The second bright spot pertains to the annual survey entitled What Will They Learn? that shows the grades of over 1,100 colleges & universities evaluated & given by the American Council Of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) .  Three years ago New College of Florida (NCF) had a failing grade from ACTA - it did not require students to take any foundational courses of value to graduate.  Today NCF has improved to a B+ grade placing it in the top 8% of institutions in the country & making it the highest-rated public college or university in Florida.  In-state tuition is less than $7,000 a year.

The national tabulation of ACTA's grades for all of the schools is as follows:

Click on image to enlarge

I present this information for the benefit of people who are in the process of selecting a college.  The above ACTA website is a common sense place to start since ACTA has done a lot of the screening work for you already.  There are many hidden gems & plenty of surprises regarding how little it takes to graduate from some schools that are living off their reputations.  Employers know these schools. 

In 2020 - 2021 the University of Georgia had a similar experience as NCF did this year in that it went from grade "F" to grade "A".  I know of one NJ student currently attending UGA & one who graduated after it became grade "A".  The latter student had no trouble finding employment in her finance field starting work @ 22 years old with a six figure salary after graduating from UGA.  Employers know these schools also.