College students are a lot more worried about grades these days. This is something I myself have witnessed in the large general education courses I teach at UCI. My offerings are part of the breadth requirements common at most universities. These attract learners from a wide array of academic disciplines –– which at UCI translates into large numbers of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors. The changes I’m seeing manifest in a growing preoccupation with grades and rankings, as well as increasing concerns about future earnings potential. This shift has not gone unnoticed by my colleagues, many of whom express disdain for students more invested in grade point averages than the intrinsic value of learning. Some view this as a troubling trend towards a consumer mentality in education. But I take a more sanguine view.
While grade pressure always has been present to some extent, its recent intensification goes beyond individual classrooms. Almost every university uses these metrics as the primary measure of learning. This makes assessments and scores central to most university teaching for a variety of reasons: measuring comprehension, motivating student effort, providing feedback, generating student rankings, etc. But grade-centric approaches also can fail to account for learners’ diverse challenges, and may undermine equity as a result. Moreover, too much attention on grades can compromise critical thinking and intellectual curiosity crucial not only for academic success but also for life after college.
Students are conditioned to prioritize ranking and measurement from an early age. The pre-college experience is often full of pressure about high school class standing and SAT/ACT test scores. This early fixation on quantifiable metrics shapes students’ approach to learning well before they think about higher education. By the time they enter college, many have been so damaged by a performance-oriented mindset that they no longer find any joy in learning or discovery. This is particularly evident in elite institutions, where even the most accomplished students often feel caught in a perpetual cycle of peer competition. The pressure to meet ever-increasing standards persists throughout their academic careers, creating a constant climate of stress and self-evaluation. Such relentless competition can diminish learners’ intrinsic motivation while reducing education to a series of hurtles.
The stress engendered by this competitive system long has been a source of worry for educators. Simply put, a system designed to produce “winners” inevitably creates a larger group of perceived “losers.” In his influential work No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Why We Lose our Race to Win), Alfie Kohn argues that Americans are caught in a vicious cycle in which economic pressures and personal anxieties reinforce each other. Early competition conditions youngsters to believe they live in a world where scarcity exists at every turn, presenting them with the following paradoxical logic: “If I must defeat you to get what I want, then what I want must be scarce.” Kohn explains that when “competition sets itself as the goal, which is to win, scarcity is created out of nothing.”[i]
Kohn contends that this scarcity logic imparts a deep-seated fear of personal inadequacy. Victories tend to be rare moments of self-affirmation contingent on a positive nod from an external source, all reinforcing the belief that one’s worth is enhanced by beating others. This mindset creates a particularly insidious form of self-alienation, where individuals become spectators to their own achievements, constantly seeking validation through the lens of competition rather than inherent satisfaction. The perpetual chase for competitive success often masks a deeper yearning for genuine connection and self-acceptance, as individuals sacrifice authentic growth for the hollow metrics of comparison. The cruelest aspect of this dynamic is the short-lived experience of good feelings, as the cycle of presumed shortcoming or risk nearly immediately starts again.
The external nature of this evaluation can leave young people feeling powerless over their fate, as researcher Carole Ames has observed. Paradoxically, the sense of autonomy competition purports to foster is often eroded by the anxieties it engenders.[ii] When students are constantly compared to their peers, their self-worth becomes tied to their performance relative to others. This pressure can lead to negative self-perceptions, particularly for those who consistently fall short, fostering feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Worse still, Ames found that the fear of failure in a competitive environment may discourage risk-taking and reduce intrinsic motivation to learn. As students focus more on outperforming others rather than understanding the material, their overall learning can suffer.[iii]
Despite the well-documented downsides of competition, many faculty and administrators adhere to a meritocratic philosophy. It’s important to recognize that meritocracy is often promoted as a democratic antidote to the unfair advantages conferred by privilege, background, wealth, and parentage. The major flaw in this reasoning lies in the mistaken premise that everyone begins from an equal starting point –– a view ignoring significant real-world inequities. Such disparities include differences in prior education, college preparation, socioeconomic status, immigration status, and the unique challenges first-generation college students face. Rather than leveling the playing field, meritocracy often reinforces these, resulting in an educational environment that can perpetuate social stratification, rewarding those who already possess the means to succeed and undermining any potential for education to serve as a true equalizer.
The drive to compete and outperform others seems deeply woven into the fabric of modern institutions. These concerns about competition and inequality in education have a long history in social and political thought. In his critique of competitive economies, Karl Marx highlighted their inherent inequities, including in education. In capitalist societies, citizens compete for wages and privileges, often conditioned to accept structural advantages held by those in power. According to Marx, education is crucial in “mystifying” how inequity is institutionalized and naturalized. This manifests in the ways learners compete for grades and opportunities, focusing on outpacing their classmates rather than recognizing their interdependence and the value of collective learning and advancement.[iv] This pattern of privileging individual achievement over communal growth continues to shape educational systems worldwide, raising fundamental questions about the purpose and ethics of learning itself.
[i] Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), 47.
[ii] Carole Ames, “Competitive Versus Cooperative Reward Structures: The Influence of Individual and Group Performance Factors on Achievement Attributions and Affect,” American Educational Research Journal 18, no. 3 (1981): 273-287.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I (1867) (London: Penguin, 1976) pp. 644-645.