Western Oregon University Adopts New Grading System

[fmsoa]

Western Oregon University Adopts New Grading System

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/busi...ing-system


Interesting points from the article:

• Over 65 percent of freshmen who had dropped out in the past five years had earned an F in their first quarter.
  
  
• About 40.4 million people, or 12 percent of Americans, have some college credit but didn’t earn a degree or certificate.
  
  
• Around 80% of Yale's grades were either A's or A-'s
  

I'm in favor of grade inflation since everyone else is doing it. 

Why not take advantage of it, especially if you can be discriminated against for having a low GPA?

I disagree. imo it's just another marketing scheme. If WOU really cares about the 40% graduation rate and 'F' stigma, they can either go CBE or be like TECEP where transcripts won't even show a failed test score. And you think HR can't see through NCR=fail? Plus almost all colleges had policy that if you retake a failed class the new grade would replace the failed grade in GPA calculation, which is a good sign of resilience against adversity.

Again if these bureaucrats really care about students quitting schools after failing a class, should they offer one-price-till-pass guarantee or partial refund bonus for students getting it done first time around? All this school wants is if a student fails a class come back to repeat with us. It's all about extracting the last penny out of struggling students.

I know WOU is just 30 minutes away from OSU and only 70 miles from UO so competition for students is fierce. But I'm really disappointed that these highly-paid administrators can't even be a little more creative and innovative. Just take a look at Oregon State and they are such pioneer in online education. 

WOU can be bold but they choose just to be gimmicky