During this era, which has yet to end, student course evaluations of classes became mandatory, students became increasingly career focused, and tuition rises dramatically outpaced increases in family income. Some of the data were reported in terms of grade point average (GPA). A former university chancellor from the University of Wisconsin, David Ward, summed up this change well in 2010: That philosophy (the old approach to teaching) is no longer acceptable to the public or faculty or anyone else. Then there is the question of what people are buying in higher education. The reason for this abandonment was simple. Grade deflation (Meaning, Impact, Systems, Grade inflation) Students are paying more for a product every year, and increasingly they want and get the reward of a good grade for their purchase. They need to be the ones to create incentives to bring back honest grading. In 2014, that policy was abandoned. BU Teaching Awards Honor Two Outstanding Educators, No, Youre Not Imagining It: Seasonal Allergies Are Getting Worse, Getting to Know Your Neighborhood: East Boston, Inner Strength Gospel Choir Celebrates 50th Anniversary, Nathan Alan Davis Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea Opens at CFAs Studio ONE, Age, Inflation, Abortion, Culture Wars, and More: Issues That Will Define President Bidens Reelection Campaign, Moving On: Tips for Dealing with Post-Commencement Blues, Wheelocks Melissa Holt to Lead Kilachand Honors College, Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah Speaks of Migrants and Memoryand That Call from Sweden, COMs Mitchell Zuckoff Recreates a Suspenseful Story from the Chaotic US Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 24 Charles River Campus Faculty Promoted to Full Professor. Peter Arnold, an associate professor of operations and technology management and director of undergraduate faculty at SMG, notes that the target GPAs at the school have risen since he started at BU 20 years ago, from between C+ and B in his first years to todays targets near a solid B for lower division courses and B+ for junior and senior courses. Similarly, the committee noted that department-level grade targets were often misinterpreted as quotas. This interpretation is flatly wrong and most undergraduates are smart enough to know it. UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvey Mudd, and Caltech are just a handful of colleges who are relatively deflated.