Students all over Britain are about to start throwing graduation mortar boards in the air. Many will be hurling them a little higher in the knowledge that they are graduating with first-class degrees. If this were the result of a long-term uptick in academic excellence there would indeed be much to be celebrated. It’s probably not, though.
Grade inflation appears to be rife in British universities. The number of firsts has more than doubled in the past decade, meaning that less capable students are probably being over-rewarded. If so, their firsts are coming at the expense of the best and the brightest, who lose out on the well-earned prestige that a first once commanded. Last year nearly 89,000 students were awarded firsts, representing 23 per cent of graduates, compared with 11 per cent in 2005.
There is no shortage of evidence that students are working harder than a generation ago, incentivised by the knowledge that they will graduate with hefty debts as well as degrees. It is also likely that universities that depend on high enrolment to stay solvent will not want to be seen to punish students with low grades.
Neither of these developments is any reason to dilute the cachet of a first. As the category expands, it loses value. At least until the advent of tuition fees, firsts from non-Oxbridge Russell Group universities were genuinely noteworthy. They are now more likely to be an indication of competence and potential rather than excellence.
Ideally all universities would reserve the right to award firsts only for truly exceptional work, and to award none at all in fallow years. Since that might put students off, the next best approach is simply to narrow the top band and give firsts to, say, the top 5 per cent instead of nearly one in four. We could even borrow from the old world (and the new) and call them summa cum laude.