By Lindsay Ellis
AI is making "A" grades easier to come by, a new study shows -- and making them less useful to employers trying to size up college graduates.
The share of A's in college classes heavy on writing and coding -- in other words, work more prone to artificial-intelligence use -- has grown more significantly than in other classes since ChatGPT's debut, according to a paper from the University of California, Berkeley, released Wednesday. Professors teaching AI-exposed classes gave out about 30% more A's and fewer A-minus and B-plus grades.
The results suggest that students have relied on generative AI to do better in their studies, not that these classes of students are learning more, says Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at Berkeley's Center for Studies in Higher Education and the paper's author.
While grade inflation has been an issue on college campuses for years, AI tools have made it even harder to assess the quality of students' work. To zero in on AI's effect on grades, Chirikov pulled data on more than half a million grades from 2018 to 2025 at a large public university in Texas that publishes course syllabi and grade distributions.
He then compared classes with more AI-exposed tasks, most prevalent in humanities and engineering disciplines, with classes less reliant on writing and coding work. There was little difference between the two groups through 2022. Afterward, "A" grades shot up higher in the more AI-exposed courses. In classes that had more take-home assignments like homework, getting an A was even more likely.
Grades became less important in recent years for graduates seeking that first job out of college. Now, though, some companies are slammed by huge numbers of entry-level applicants. As the job market cools, they are both raising the bar for entry-level jobs and seeking more consistent criteria to winnow the candidate pool.
In 2023, 37% of employers used grade-point average in hiring, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That figure has ticked back up to 42%. Employers including Barclays and Morgan Stanley have GPA minimums for some internship roles.
The concern now is that AI is making that evaluation method less reliable -- just as it has for cover letters, résumés and other job-application materials.
Learning requires "productive struggle" that is eroded by AI, says Berkeley's Chirikov. Will grads leave campus producing ready-to-publish reports or data dives without developing critical cognitive abilities? And does it matter?
"As much as AI is helping people become more productive, to produce more, I think it may harm their learning," he says.
News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
Some elite U.S. universities are raising concerns about grade inflation. Employers have a legitimate interest in comparing students' performances, a February report from Harvard College found, but current grading policies don't allow them to do so. Faculty there are voting this week on a proposal that would cap the number of A's.
An April report from Yale University put it plainly: "Grades exist to communicate what students have learned. At Yale, as at many peer institutions, they no longer do."
Now, Chirikov says, an A grade might mean that a student has access to a more advanced technology model, or is better at using it -- rather than measuring the underlying skill.
Few job postings on the entry-level career website Handshake require applicants to submit GPAs. Of those that do, nearly a quarter this year require a 3.5 GPA or higher, compared with 9% in 2020.
Most companies that use a GPA cutoff in hiring say they believe it is at least somewhat helpful, according to survey data from Veris Insights, which analyzes hiring trends.
Companies dislike students' use of AI in the job-application process and, at the same time, want students to know how to use the technology, says Chelsea Schein, vice president of research strategy at Veris. "They're talking from both sides of their mouth."
Schein teaches negotiations and business ethics to undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. She has made homework a smaller percentage of a student's final grade as she realized AI could easily score 100% on her assignments. Midterms and in-class quizzes, for which students can't use AI, now hold more weight.
Write to Lindsay Ellis at lindsay.ellis@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 13, 2026 19:00 ET (23:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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