Over the weekend, the Washington Post had a column about grade inflation written by Alicia Shepard, a journalism professor at American University. The piece didn’t approach the subject from the perspective of documenting the existence of grade inflation, though; that much was (and is) assumed to be true. Instead, Shepard relates how she and and other teachers regularly get harrassed (or even bribed!) by students to whom they give grades lower than an A, students who almost certainly don’t deserve As for their work but who feel that anything less is an insult to them. Similarly, she points out the growing feeling among teachers that a college education is shifting from being a privilege to being a consumer product, and that the shift is bringing with it a belief that the cost of the education alone justifies good grades, irrespective of the amount of work a student does to earn them. It’s all a bit eye-opening, and a truly sad statement about education in America.