Students Will No Longer Receive F or D- Grades at Western Oregon University

Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned failure? It either resulted in you hunkering down, and trying harder, or you used it as a reason to move on and pursue other things.

Apparently, college kids can’t handle the consequences of their own actions. No surprise there…

From The College Fix:

Citing a wrongheaded “GPA fixation,” Western Oregon University leaders have announced plans to abolish D- and F grades for students.

They will replace them with “no credit” in an effort to support student success and encourage struggling undergrads to continue their education despite obstacles, they said.

“Students not earning a passing grade will be required to repeat the course and demonstrate proficiency. Our goal is to ensure that students who have met the core competencies and learning objectives graduate and provide every student an opportunity to be successful at Western Oregon University,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Jose Coll said in an email to The College Fix.

Coll, who took the job as provost in June 2023, said in the news release that “GPAs will now be a true reflection of student success and course mastery; failures will no longer mask the demonstrated abilities of our students when they pass courses.”

The news release stated that “the institutional academic grading regulation will reflect a grade range of A through D; the letter grades of D- and F will be replaced with No Credit (NC) for undergraduate students.”

“The difference is that the grade of NC will not negatively impact student GPAs.”

Western Oregon University acknowledged students receiving “no credit” are significantly more likely to continue with their education than those who fail classes, leading some to accuse the school of allowing “grade inflation” to occur, according to Inside Higher Ed.

If you’ve put your all into something, and it still doesn’t work, then all that means is that whatever you were working towards wasn’t meant for you. It’s impossible to be good at everything, and you can’t find your purpose without failing at things that aren’t meant to be steps on that journey.

But I get the feeling that’s not the kind of “failure” we’re talking about here, is it? No… it seems like we’re talking about failure that’s, largely, avoidable. Speaking from the college experience that I have… you would be astounded at how hard it is to actually fail a class these days. You can’t spit without hitting extra credit…

I have a hard time believing that simply renaming failure is going to have any positive, long-term impact… Everyone walks around complaining about how incompetent young people in the workforce are, and you think this is going to help???

I know you probably don’t need to hear this again, but… we’re headed for major trouble unless someone with more than two brain cells starts undoing all this bullsh*t.