Harvard released a report that, unsurprisingly, admitted that standards had been slipping a bit at the once-prestigious institution.
Well, maybe, not a bit. So much so that grades really don’t mean much at Harvard. Sixty percent of all grades are “A’s,” making it impossible to distinguish between good and bad students. The whole “education” thing was turning out to be a little fake.
Harvard reports that it is “failing to perform the key functions of grading.”
Its grading practices are “damaging the academic culture of the College.”
“Faculty newly arrived at Harvard are surprised at how leniently our courses are graded.”
Students say academics feel “fake.” pic.twitter.com/YDkQcO0rAu
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) October 27, 2025
Of course, that’s not the funny part. It’s not funny at all that an institution that churns out a decent percentage of the people who are almost automatically embedded in our ruling class is churning out dullards who know little and care less. People like, say, David Hogg.
DEI: Harvard admitted it stopped enforcing academic standards. Over 60% of students now get A’s as “grading” is replaced with feelings, group work, and “emotional support.” The perfect example of the collapse of merit by the so-called elites running America. pic.twitter.com/kXP4m9yH7M
— @amuse (@amuse) October 28, 2025
Obviously, the conclusion of the report was that it might be time for Harvard to focus a bit more on educational attainment and a bit less on coddling students, telling them how wonderful they are, and about how they are the moral leaders who will change the world into a utopia.
Now here comes the funny part.
Link: https://t.co/wzyHZ6Hdh6
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) October 30, 2025
Students proved them right immediately, by whining about how hard they had it already and how “soul crushing” having to study and learn would be.
The 25-page report, released Monday by the Office of Undergraduate Education, suggested that Harvard’s grading system had become so lenient that it no longer meaningfully distinguished between students. It warned that current practices were “failing to perform the key functions of grading” and were “damaging the academic culture of the College.”
But in interviews with The Crimson, more than 20 students said the report missed the complexity of academic life at Harvard. Many objected to its suggestion that students were not spending enough time on coursework and warned that stricter grading could heighten stress without improving learning.
Sophie Chumburidze ’29 said the report felt dismissive of students’ hard work and academic struggles.
“The whole entire day, I was crying,” she said. “I skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren’t even the best.”
“It just felt soul-crushing,” she added.
I’m sorry, but that is hilarious. She’s at HARVARD. And when she was told that maybe she would have to work a bit to get good grades, she collapsed in a puddle of tears and…skipped classes.
Uh, yeah. I think the report might be understating things.
Harvard prides itself on preparing people to be leaders of their fields—the elite of the elite, right? That is the pitch to students, the pitch made to donors who have made it one of the wealthiest institutions in the world, and the pitch to employers to hire Harvard grads at exorbitant salaries and almost sight-unseen.
And the reaction to being told that A-grades might not be automatic is to collapse in a puddle of tears.
The report called on Harvard affiliates to work with officials to “re-center academics” and devote time towards tougher and more strictly graded courses. But many students said the push felt misguided, warning that tougher grading, without attendant changes in academic quality, would shift their focus from learning to chasing grades.
Kayta A. Aronson ’29 said stricter standards could take a serious toll on students’ mental health.
“It makes me rethink my decision to come to the school,” she said. “I killed myself all throughout high school to try and get into this school. I was looking forward to being fulfilled by my studies now, rather than being killed by them.”
Zahra Rohaninejad ’29 added that grading already felt harsh and raising standards further would only erode students’ ability to enjoy their classes.
“I can’t reach my maximum level of enjoyment just learning the material because I’m so anxious about the midterm, so anxious about the papers, and because I know it’s so harshly graded,” she said. “If that standard is raised even more, it’s unrealistic to assume that people will enjoy their classes.”
Hey, Dude, don’t harsh my buzz. I’m here to have fun.
Contrary to what you might imagine, given how harshly I berate the elite in the West, and elite institutions in particular, I am not at all hostile to the idea of elite institutions like Harvard and Yale churning out a small hyper-educated and hyper-cultured class. Not only that, I think that most of us in the hoi polloi are inclined to admire intellectual and cultural achievement as much as we do any other kind.
Einstein remains a touchstone in our culture, even though it’s only a tiny fraction of people who understand the ideas behind his physics. Show this photograph to almost anybody in the West, and they immediately know who it is, 70 years after his death. As much as we decry the obsession with celebrities, rightly, in 70 years, nobody will recognize a photograph or Katy Perry or Taylor Swift.
The reason why there is so much contempt for elite institutions in America and the West these days is that they are contemptible. The problem is not that they are elite, but that they are elite and totally undeserving of being so. It’s no accident, I would argue, that some of the most famous former students of elite institutions lately have dropped out.
Harvard and similar institutions, if they functioned properly, would take the partially honed talents of some of the strongest minds and sharpen them to a fine point. Instead, it produces students who can’t handle being told to work hard to get a decent grade.
I find the Harvard Crimson story funny because the students who whined were too stupid to understand that they were proving the point they thought they were refuting. “I am too fragile.” “It harshes my buzz to study.” “I am here for the extracurriculars.”
They want opportunity and praise for being, not achieving. And they look down their noses at the rest of us, and will often wind up in positions that make our lives far more difficult.
But several students said their involvements outside of the classroom were integral to Harvard’s identity.
“What makes a Harvard student a Harvard student is their engagement in extracurriculars,” Peyton White ’29 said. “Now we have to throw that all away and pursue just academics. I believe that attacks the very notion of what Harvard is.”
Hudson C. McCarthy ’29, a member of the men’s lacrosse team, said the report ignored the realities faced by student-athletes.
“It’s doing students a disservice because it’s not really accounting for what we have to do on a day to day basis, and how many hours we’re putting into our team, our bodies, and then also school,” he said.
Yes, Harvard really should focus on its excellent lacrosse team. That’s why it exists.
All societies develop elites of some kind or another, be they warrior elites, a priestly cast, a nobility, or an economic and cultural elite. For a time in America, we had an elite that pushed our country forward and left behind monuments to greatness. Artistic and architectural masterpieces, scientific achievements, and a country carved out of a wilderness.
Now we admit David Hogg and Jazz Jennings into Harvard because they are celebrities of at best modest talents. At worst, Harvard is about the redistribution of social prestige based on race, gender, and sexuality. Greatness is despised.
It would take a heart of stone to not have a schadenboner https://t.co/PYJ3R24UFR
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 30, 2025
The last thing our society needs is an entitled, mediocre elite class that contributes nothing and demands everything. We need Einsteins and Musks, not Gender Studies students studying the finer points of protest.
These student comments are hilarious because they so unselfconsciously confirm why we despise the modern academic institutions. They are filled with know-nothing entitled brats.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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