Meritocracy has long been at the heart of the education system, driven by the core idea that better performance translates to higher grades. This system intuitively makes sense as a student who answers 9 out of 10 questions correctly on a quiz rightfully earns a better grade than someone who got 7 or 8 questions correct. However, the adoption of the ‘Collaborative Grading Contract’ by some courses at UC San Diego completely turns a blind eye to this long-standing grading system. In the previous scenario, the Collaborative Grading Contract would equate to both students earning the same grade even though one student received a sizably lower quiz score. Thus, this novel and laissez-faire grading style is neither conducive to learning nor is it remotely fair to students on a fundamental level.

The two courses that have adapted this grading policy are the Warren College Writing Program and the 7th College Synthesis classes. These courses are meant to teach students who may not be English majors how to read, write, and think critically about topics beyond math and science. However, the implementation of these grading policies means that students are not as incentivized to develop an important skill useful not just in college and academia but also in the real world. Especially in these two colleges, where a liberal arts education is almost nonexistent, (Warren is already STEM-heavy, and Seventh only has three required writing courses, the lowest out of any college), their writing classes need to be more challenging and do more to produce well-rounded students.

Here is how Collaborative Grading Contracts work: at the beginning of the quarter, the instructor asks each student to sign a contract in which the student “promises” to work for a certain grade. Keep in mind that students are given the freedom to choose their own “earned” grade before any work has been submitted. At the end of the grading period, if the instructor feels that the student has not held up their end of the contract, they can rescind the contract and give the student an alternate grade. Regardless of the professor’s final input, this agreement is not a true contract in the sense that students can now take advantage of this entirely flexible and almost non-existent grading system by signing an A-contract and proceeding to do C-worthy work, as long as they turn in the work somewhat on time. Meanwhile, the instructor does not renege on the contract at the end of the grading period because, in the words of the contract itself: “If you do the work as assigned and meet the terms of your contract, you will earn the exact grade you contracted for. No questions asked.” However, “doing work as assigned” and “fulfilling the terms of the contract” are entirely subjective and require instructors to have a strong baseline knowledge of each student’s work to truly know if an effort was made. This is why Collaborative Grading Contracts are essentially a free A, “no questions asked.” 

This grading style might seem ideal in a utopian education system, but in reality, it is inherently unfair and not conducive to learning. Taking into account the information above, it is fair to assume that a student is guaranteed an A at the end of the quarter. Consequently, students can rely on this system and do a minimal amount of work while not truly learning or improving their knowledge and skills.

Source: UCSD Capes and this Reddit post 

This also leads to a larger problem: grade inflation. Since A’s are essentially handed out with minimal work required, the value of a “good” grade decreases. While this is beneficial to students in Warren and Seventh College, the remaining six colleges have not adopted this system, exacerbating an inequity that the Collaborative Grading Contract was implemented to solve. For example, on CAPEs, the university’s resource for evaluations of courses by students, the average grade for a WCWP writing course is approximately 3.9, while the average grade for an MCWP writing course in John Muir College can be as low as 2.5. Currently, MCWP is no longer listed on CAPEs, but there are sources on online forums with screenshots proving this grade inflation for students in WCWP compared to MCWP. This does not mean that Warren students, a college known for its many engineers and STEM majors, are simply better writers than Muir, a college known for its emphasis on liberal arts, but rather that a fundamental flaw exists in the grading standards for both classes.

The unintended side effects of Collaborative Grading are to punish the students who try and to reward the students who do not. In a system where essentially everyone gets the same grade, students who engage with the material and try to learn are pseudo-punished as they have spent more time for the same grade than someone who does not try. For example, a student who goes above and beyond on an essay in WCWP 10 will receive the same grade as someone who GPTed their essay and changed a few words in there, because everyone is guaranteed an A (while Collaborative Contract grading denies that everyone is guaranteed an A, the statistics say otherwise).

It is time to put a stop to these grading systems that make a joke out of meritocracy and true effort, discourage the pursuit of learning and knowledge, and are unfair to students outside of these colleges.