By Douglas V. Gibbs
The University of Michigan’s recent announcement that thousands of freshmen will receive only pass/no credit grades rather than traditional letter grades represents more than just a policy change. It’s the latest manifestation of a dangerous educational philosophy that first gained traction during the Marxist push in education of the 1970s.
While administrators frame this “grade covering” pilot program as a mental health initiative designed to help students “acclimate” to university life, it’s nothing more than a foot-in-the-door strategy to eventually eliminate grades altogether. This approach fundamentally misunderstands human nature and the competitive spirit that drives innovation and excellence.
What we’re witnessing at Michigan is a retread of the failed educational experiments of the 1970s, when Marxist-influenced academics pushed for eliminating grades under the guise of promoting equality and reducing stress. The underlying philosophy was the same then as it is now: if we remove measures of individual achievement, we can create a more “equitable” environment where no one feels bad about themselves.
The problem with this thinking is that it ignores a fundamental truth about human motivation; people strive for excellence when they can see and measure their success. When you eliminate the ability to distinguish oneself through superior performance, you eliminate the incentive to perform at one’s highest level.
Michigan administrators claim this policy will benefit students’ mental health, but this is a deeply flawed premise. True mental health comes from building resilience through overcoming challenges, not from being shielded from the reality that some performance is better than others.
Professor Derek Peterson’s comments about students being in a “particularly precarious position” perfectly illustrate this misguided approach. Rather than helping students develop the tools to succeed in a competitive world, this policy coddles them at the moment they most need to develop grit and determination.
If I know that my maximum reward for effort is simply a “pass” mark, the same as someone who does the bare minimum, why would I push myself to excel? This policy sends a clear message: mediocrity is acceptable, and striving for distinction is unnecessary.
The competitive spirit that drives innovation, breakthroughs, and excellence is being systematically dismantled. When students can’t see the direct correlation between their effort and their academic standing, they naturally adjust their effort downward to match the reduced incentive structure. Human Nature plummets operations to the lowest common denominator.
Make no mistake, this freshman-only policy is just the beginning. Once established, the “grade covering” approach will gradually expand to upperclassmen, then to other schools within the university system. The same arguments about mental health and acclimation will be repurposed to justify eliminating grades across the board.
The fact that other elite institutions like MIT and Caltech have implemented similar policies doesn’t validate the approach. It simply shows how deeply this anti-meritocratic ideology has permeated higher education.
What universities should be doing instead is helping students develop the resilience to compete and excel. Rather than eliminating grades, institutions should focus on teaching students how to handle both success and failure – both essential components of a well-rounded education.
The competitive drive that motivates students to strive for A’s isn’t something to be suppressed. It’s something that should be channeled productively. This drive has fueled innovation and excellence throughout human history, and attempts to eliminate it in service of a misguided egalitarianism will ultimately harm both the students and society at large.
The University of Michigan’s gradeless experiment isn’t progress; it’s a regression to failed educational philosophies of the past, dressed up in modern mental health rhetoric. Unless we recognize it for what it is, a disincentive to excellence, this approach will continue to spread, further eroding the competitive spirit that has made American higher education at one time the envy of the world.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
