The misallocation of resources seems obvious if you look at the job prospects of English majors vs Engineering majors: the world wants more engineers.
Fabio's argument seems to be that most students' ability to be an engineer is partially predetermined, and that the ones with fewer talents wouldn't be much more useful if they decided to study engineering anyway (compared to their usefulness with an English degree). The bottom line is: grade inflation shouldn't interefere with the process of students choosing their majors. Gustavo ----- Original Message ----- From: "fabio guillermo rojas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, April 15, 2002 1:45 PM Subject: Re: Grade Inflation > > The effect of this is to draw students away from math, science and > > economics and towards the softer social sciences. Similarly, within > > departments students are drawn away from harder graders and towards > > softer graders. Budgets go where students go! Thus grade inflation > > causes a *misallocation of resources* (measured in student time or in > > budgets.) > > Alex > > Alex, were you reading the New York Times this morning? Seriously, > how much misallocation is occuring? Why is better to have more math and > physics majors, and less English majors? Maybe this is in some sense > optimal. > Why should people who can't do math clog up math classes? > English professors are cheaper and more numerous, so maybe lax grading > is a way of allowing people to get the degree while not burdening > the big money generators of the university.
