{"id":91619,"date":"2026-08-12T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=91619"},"modified":"2026-08-11T17:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:25:06","slug":"to-improve-student-mental-health-university-of-michigan-eases-grading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/to-improve-student-mental-health-university-of-michigan-eases-grading\/","title":{"rendered":"To improve student mental health, University of Michigan eases grading"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"To<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The University of Michigan will replace traditional letter grades for some first-semester freshmen with a pass\/fail-style grade, to more gently ease new students into academic life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan will go into effect in the fall of 2027 at the university\u2019s College of Literature, Science and the Arts. It is intended to relieve pressure on freshmen and help them \u201cstart strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,\u201d the university said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the plan, first semester letter grades will still be recorded internally by the school for things like compliance reporting and eligibility for academic honors, the university said. Student transcripts, however, will reflect either \u201cpass\u201d for each course or \u201cno credit.\u201d First-semester grades will not factor into grade-point averages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new grading plan, reported earlier by The Chronicle of Higher Education, is similar to how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology records grades. First-semester freshman grades at M.I.T. are reported as either pass or no record, to allow students time to get accustomed to an increased college workload and different teaching methods, the M.I.T. Registrar\u2019s Office explains on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many courses at Brown University, a student may choose between two grading options, according to the university\u2019s Office of the Registrar. One is a grade of A, B, C or no credit. The other is a grade of satisfactory or no credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University of Michigan said the point of the change \u201cis to help first-year students acclimate to the demands of college,\u201d and to allow students to set their early academic path with less grade pressure. \u201cFor example, they can explore a subject that may not come easily to them or take a course in a new field without the fear that a low grade may have long-term consequences,\u201d the school said in its statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the university\u2019s largest college, has about 3,500 first-year students, according to the university. The total number of university freshmen is about 8,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summit Louth, student body president at the university, called the grading change \u201can incredible thing\u201d and said that students he had heard from have overwhelmingly supported the new policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt will do a lot to help get students into a routine that is healthy and sustainable for the time they are here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Louth, 20, a junior, said that such a policy would have helped him when he was a freshman arriving on campus. \u201cYou\u2019re just figuring out how to be an adult and live on your own,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gets extremely stressful having to balance that with also wanting to be a straight-A student.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy faced immediate criticism from people who have argued that making academics easier for students does not ultimately help them. Rick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said the policy is \u201cexactly the wrong diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt turns out that swaddling college students does not actually improve their mental health,\u201d he said. \u201cIt creates entitlement. It creates a lack of productive tension.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Hess urges the opposite approach. He called for \u201cratcheting up rigor\u201d in coursework and \u201cratcheting up expectations\u201d on students, with things like robust minimum reading requirements and curbs on cellphone use on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and author, agreed that getting a bad grade can feel awful and make students anxious. \u201cBut feeling bad isn\u2019t the same thing as being unwell,\u201d he said. \u201cI worry that therapists and institutions have blurred that distinction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCollege should be one of the places where young people learn that evaluation isn\u2019t always pleasant,\u201d he said. Students might get a C or worse, hear criticism from a professor or fail to get the internship they wanted. \u201cThose experiences can hurt, but learning that you can tolerate them and move forward prepares you for adulthood,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Hulleman, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Virginia, said it was a positive sign that \u201cinstitutions are thinking about grading and doing it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research suggests that pass\/fail grading helps reduce burnout in students, and that \u201cfrom a motivational perspective, grades that compare students with each other tend to increase anxiety,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other prominent schools, such as Harvard University, have taken the opposite tack with grades \u2014 making them more competitive. The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted overwhelmingly in May to restrict the number of A-grades professors may award in undergraduate classes. The school capped A\u2019s at roughly 20 percent of the grades in a class after extensive study and debate over how to address grade inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n