The View from 30,000 Feet: Public-Facing Syllabi and Grade Inflation

[The View from 30,000 Feet is an occasional entry that offers a big-picture view of some of the topics covered on this blog.]

A Google search of the phrase "public facing syllabi and grade inflation" returns the following AI response: "Public-facing syllabi are proposed as a way to increase transparency and potentially address grade inflation, but critics argue that public exposure could increase external pressure on instructors . . . The University System of Georgia recently mandated that all public institutions post course syllabi on public websites by the fall of 2026. Proponents argue that making syllabi public increases transparency for students, parents, and taxpayers. Public syllabi, which include course descriptions, readings, and learning objectives, allow external groups to scrutinize class materials and hold instructors accountable for course content." Besides any interest in the fact that Google AI integrated the USG's recent decision to mandate public-facing syllabi into its response to the search prompt, there are a few interesting features in the response above. The first is the obvious one, that is that "public syllabi . . . allow external groups to scrutinize class materials and hold instructors accountable for course content." Policies such as the one recently implemented by the USG provide an avenue for state legislators, policy groups and others to discern how far issues surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion have penetrated the halls of the academy. That avenue will almost certainly be a well-travelled one in Georgia heading into fall of 2026. The Turner College may not experience much, if any, discomfort in this regard, given the nature of its courses. That discomfort will likely land in the soft social sciences and related subjects (e.g., English composition and rhetoric) on the other parts of CSU's campuses. The prompt about grade inflation will, however, likely visit the Turner College, and perhaps in unexpected ways. The prompt above suggests that public-facing syllabi may be a (partial) solution to grade inflation, which it defines as "a long-term trend in which average grades rise over time without a corresponding increase in student achievement." What if the opposite is true? Students will likely do some "course section shopping" before registering for courses. Imagine that in a section of a course, taught by Prof A, students face a class participation expectation worth 5% of the overall course grade, two in-semester exams, worth 30% each in terms of a student's overall course grade, with a final exam accounting for the remaining 35%. Imagine also that Prof B teaches another section of the same course and offers two in-semester exams worth 15% each, along with a final exam also constituting 15% of the overall course grade. In this section of the course there are other graded items to consider, such as class participation at 20%, small quizzes combining for 15%, and some in-class writing prompts making up the remaining 20%. According to the descriptions above, the major exams constitute almost all of Prof A's section of the course but less than one-half of Professor B's section of the course. Two identical sets of students, each set taking different sections of the course described above, would almost certainly produce noticeably different class averages. You might say that, in terms of outcome, one course is priced lower than the other. Will CSU and other USG students become price-conscious shoppers in the public-facing syllabi era? In the words of higher education sage Justin Bobby, "truth and time will tell."