Amazingly, after finished writing 5 parts on Uncle Sam’s education challenges, a friend sent us a link which appeared to be NPR article on un-grading. Basically, the idea is based on the following premises:

1. A good grade such as an A does not guarantee to reflect students level of learning.
2. Most of freshmen-year students are not ready for college-level classes. Therefore, they have to be given opportunity to adjust with the college life. Note that this un-grading can be expanded beyond first-year students as well.

Let us analyze such an initiative using a logical approach. Here are list of possible notes:

1. If the students are not ready for college-level classes–it means that something is broken at the previous education level, read PreK-12.
2. Cited on the NPR’s article is a freshman who needs to balance her life activities such as studying and working. Does this means the cost of education is too expensive such that it is unaffordable, even after taking the student loans? or
3. Should the student loans be expanded to also cover cost of living?
4. When students applied for admissions, do not they have to submit their assessment tests such as ACT or SAT, or at least their high school transcripts? Are this information has no value to measure the prospects’ college readiness?

One certainly has more questions than answers. Also note, recent push to eliminate assessment tests such as ACT or SAT for college applicants showed some success. Some schools, such as Harvard has put on hold the assessment test submissions as one of application requirements for the class of 26 through 30. Applicants’ readiness for taking college classes are different across locations and institutions. However, there are common predictors of students success which can be used to substitute for the assessment tests such as high school GPA, the rigor of the courses as evident from the AP tests or from the applicants’ essays (assuming no consultant was hired to write it or no Chatgpt has been used in the process. While eliminating the assessment requirements will open a wider-door for accessing college education, and therefore increase diversity, one may need to calculate where is the optimum level of the trade-off. In the mathematical and business/economics optimization language what is the unique equilibrium that will maximize both objectives, i.e. increase college access and diversity without risking the quality of college education. This is a matter of empirical questions which can be found through stochastic simulation, instead of through a try-and-error approach.