Grades are intended to function as meaningful and legitimate indicators of students’ subject-specific knowledge. In a criterion-referenced grading system, grades should accurately reflect the extent to which students meet predefined criteria for different performance levels and thereby provide a trustworthy measure of achievement. 

However, an expanding body of research suggests that grade inflation has become increasingly prevalent across educational systems, raising concerns about the validity and comparability of grades as measures of student achievement. When grades no longer reliably distinguish between levels of performance, their role as signals for selection, evaluation, and accountability is weakened.

Several explanations for grade inflation have been proposed, including heightened accountability metrics imposed on schools and teachers, increased competition between schools for enrollment (especially commercially managed independent schools dependent on revenue for continued operation), growing pressure from parents and students for higher grades given significant labor-market consequences associated with grades, and shifts toward more subjective assessment practices. 

Grade inflation accordingly has important implications at both individual and system levels. For students, inflated grades may foster unrealistic self-perceptions and complicate transitions to higher levels of education. At the system level, grade inflation can undermine equity and public trust, particularly when grading practices vary systematically across schools or student groups. Consequently, understanding the causes, patterns, and consequences of grade inflation remains a central concern in both educational research and policy.

In Sweden, the introduction of a criterion-referenced grading system in the early 1990s was met with criticism, partly because all students could, in principle, attain the highest grade if the criteria were met. Grades in the Swedish system are assigned by teachers, and there is no formal external mechanism to ensure uniform interpretation of grading criteria. As a result, decisions regarding whether students meet the requirements for specific grade levels rest largely with individual teachers, increasing the risk of inequity in grading practices (Abrams, 2016; Vlachos, 2019).

In the United States, grading is likewise defined by a criterion-referenced system. However, since 1968, the federal government has administered an exam every two years in reading, writing, math, and science to a sample of fourth- and eighth-grades in all 50 states. Results on this exam, called the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), or the Nation’s Report Card, have slid significantly while student grades at the secondary level, according to surveys by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), have climbed substantially (Sanchez & Moore, 2022). A similar pattern has emerged at the tertiary level, with results on university-entrance exams declining significantly over the past three decades while student grades at universities have climbed substantially (Fair, 2023; Nierenberg, 2023; Radavoi, Quadrelli, & Collins, 2025; Arsenault, 2026).

The overarching aim of the present study is to document grade inflation in Sweden and the United States at every level where data are available, to explore explanations for this grade inflation, and to assess implications in Sweden and the United States. For comparative purposes, data for nations with little, if any, grade inflation will be presented.

We use several data sources. For Sweden, we use data from the longitudinal database Evaluation Through Follow-up (UGU), which comprises data from 11 birth cohorts, spanning individuals born between 1948 and 2010. The cohorts 1992, 1998 and 2004 will be the focus. We also use data from Gothenburg Educational Longitudinal Database (GOLD), which comprises population data for individuals born in 1972 and onwards, from age 16. In addition, we utilise data published by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The data from these different data sources include measures of cognitive ability, national test results, and teacher-assigned grades in all school subjects and for different levels in the education system, from primary to upper-secondary education. Comprehensive demographic information is also available, including school governance, parental education and income, immigration background, and student gender. Beyond achievement measures, the UGU database includes a broad range of questionnaire items capturing constructs such as cognitive and psychological well-being, academic self-concept, motivation, and interest. The survey data can be used for analysing how the different constructs are associated with subgroups of students considering their achievement levels. In the case of the United States, data from NCES and NAEP along with individual reports from universities will be deployed to document the phenomenon of grade inflation. Descriptive statistics for the measures included will be estimated for several cohorts of students in Sweden and United States and the distribution of the different grades will be analysed. Analyses will be made of UGU data to investigate how much variance in cognitive ability and national test results explain differences in specific subjects. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) will be conducted to create factors of the questionnaire items (indicators). Structural equation models (SEM) will be estimated to reflect the structure of the relations between the factors, cognitive ability, national test results, and GPA in order to present the amount of variance that can be explained and whether it varies over time/cohort.

This study will present results on patterns for how grades have fluctuated over time. Preliminary results suggest that grade inflation exists in most educational systems (Radavoi, Quadrelli, & Collins, 2025). Grade inflation may exist for different reasons and may reflect macrocosmic forces having little to do with education itself and much to do with anxieties about employment, remuneration, and status. This interpretive portion of this research project constitues the heart of this undertaking and will necessitate much investigation.

Abrams, S.E. Education and the Commercial Mindset. Harvard University Press, 2016. Arsenault,M. “Harvard Considers a Proposal to Add an A+ to Help Rein in Grade Inflation,” New York Times, February 1, 2026. Fair, R. Grade Report Update: 2022-23. Yale University (November 2023). Nierenberg, A. “Excellence at Yale Doubted as Nearly Everyone Gets A’s,” New York Times, December 6, 2023. Radavoi, C., Quadrelli C., & Collins, P. “Moral Responsibility for Grade Inflation: Where Does It Lie?” Journal of Academic Ethics, Vol. 23 (2025): 1781-1798. Sanchez, E., & Moore, R. Grade Inflation Continues to Grow in the Past Decade, ACT Research, May 2022. Vlachos, J. “Trust-based evaluation in a market-oriented school system,” Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education. Routledge, 2019.