5. Discussion
With ever increasing grade inflation, we are likely to see more grade ceiling policies imposed. This paper provides insight into how these ceilings will impact the distribution of student grades. While higher ceilings ease the bunching of grades only at the top of the distribution, lower ceilings can further spread the distribution into the C range and below. The change in withdrawals suggests that lower ceilings may also prevent “shopping” for more lenient classes. These grade ceiling policies also provide a useful identification tool to evaluate the impact of grades on student evaluations.
