Grades are on the way up at the three state universities. A grade of “C” is no longer really average. The average is now “B.” People in academia call this “grade inflation.”

Don’t feel bad if you got a “B” because, heck, it’s better than a “C,” but you should feel bad that your work and effort don’t mean as much as it once did. The more grade inflation occurs, the less valuable your degree is.

The collective GPA for undergraduate students at Iowa State since the fall of 1995 was 2.78, quite a bit higher than the 2.00 which is associated with “average.”

Engineering students had the highest average, ringing in at 2.88, but students in the business college had the lowest at 2.66.

Either everyone is getting smarter, or the professors are getting easier.

One can’t look at these grades and say the business students are the least smart. Actually, these grades mean the business professors are grading tougher than the rest of the school; or the engineering professors are grading easier.

Or maybe the engineering students are just so talented that they ruin the grading scale (yeah, right).

In comparison, though, grade inflation at ISU isn’t as bad as at the other two Iowa schools.

The average GPA during the same time period at the University of Iowa was 2.81, and the University of Northern Iowa was the highest at 2.92. You could jostle your friends at the other universities about how school is tougher here. Tell them they’ve got it easy compared to ISU students.

Grade inflation is important because we pay big bucks to this university (at least I do), and my degree won’t be as worthy if the school becomes a diploma mill.

In other words: if anyone can pass the classes, then it doesn’t mean shit if I pass the classes.

Furthermore, if I get a GPA of 3.00 (which is about what I’ll graduate with) that doesn’t mean “above average” anymore — it now means “blah.”

The big jump in grades at institutions of higher learning came in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Students received higher grades without corresponding achievements. I think this means we can blame our less-valuable diploma on our hippie parents. They told those old professors of the past to lighten up, or else they got those old professors to simply light up. Hey, we could just blame grade inflation on the drug craze of the ’60s and ’70s!

The causes of grade inflation are many. Some say grade inflation results from professors who want to avoid poor class evaluations. Another cause is teachers who fear hostile students.

But the real cause of grade inflation is money. Retention of students brings more money to the university, and a dropout student doesn’t pay big bucks.

Also, parents like to see their kids getting good grades, so they continue to pay for their children to attend that particular university.

The university administration doesn’t step in and tell the professors to go easier on the students’ grades, but the lack of action to correct grade inflation is the true cause.

But ISU officials aren’t going to do anything about it because they have to compete with other universities across the country. And other universities across the country also have grade-inflation problems.

At Stanford it was reported that 90 percent of all letter grades in recent years have been no lower than “B.” Harvard’s law school has granted honors to two-thirds of its graduates, compared with one-quarter 20 years ago. Georgetown had 42 percent of its undergraduates getting “A’s” in 1994.

In addition, the folks at Duke University, who study grade inflation at America’s colleges and universities, estimated that if the current rate continues, 97 percent of all grades will be “A’s” in 25 years.

This means my little brother will have an easier time in college than he did in elementary school, where a “C” is still average. This is good (wink, wink) because he, too, is going to have to pay his way through school, and I wouldn’t want him to get bad grades, even though his diploma won’t mean shit because any fool can get one these days.

Like I said, it’s about money. Better grades for you means more money for the school.

Since no school is willing to curb grade inflation, it is up to the professors to take it upon themselves and toughen the standards by which we grade students.

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Tim Frerking is a senior in journalism and mass communications from Pomeroy. He is the summer editor in chief of the Daily.