Debate rages over U-M’s plan to hide letter grades

Weeks after the University of Michigan made headlines with its plan to keep letter grades from appearing on the transcripts of some first-year students or affecting their GPAs, the decision continues to stir debate — with critics accusing the prestigious school of shielding students from reality and warning the move could backfire.

The Wall St. Journal even published an op-ed with the title “ Coddle U. ”

But on a recent day on the Ann Arbor campus, students expressed cautious optimism. They said they agreed that transitioning to college can be hard but were uncertain if they wanted “pass” and “no credit” to replace traditional letter grades on their transcripts.

Students will still know what grade they received in a given class.

U-M says the idea of withholding the letter grade from transcripts and preventing it from affecting grade point averages is to “foster an environment where college students can acclimate to the demands of a University of Michigan education and pursue new academic challenges.”

It’s still working out all the details of the pilot program, slated to start in fall 2027 with first-year, first-semester students in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. LSA is the largest of U-M’s schools and colleges, accounting for more than half of undergraduate enrollment on the Ann Arbor campus.

Tim McKay, associate dean for undergraduate education at LSA, told Bridge there are two main goals for the program: encouraging academic exploration and improving student mental health.

“We need to give them a space to get used to the reality that we’re going to be asking them to do very difficult things that might go beyond what they were used to,” said McKay. “We want that to happen in a way which is safe enough that they’ll come through it strong – rather than feeling like it’s suddenly they’ve had something permanent and very consequential happen to them.”

McKay said it’s important students make early momentum toward completing their degree.

Bridge Michigan spoke with several U-M students recently about the policy. Many said they were supportive of giving students more leeway as they transition to new expectations at college.

“You’re still seeing the grades so you can really keep track of your progress, figuring out what works,” said Adriana Yost, a sophomore studying small business management on the Dearborn campus. “But at the same time you know in the back of your head ‘if I really do mess up and if I try something and it really doesn’t work for me, it’s not going to affect me long-term in the future.’”

But students also raised concerns about how the program would work in practicality and if covering grades would negatively affect students in applications for internships or graduate school.

“I understand the idea that they’re trying to take stress off of people that are coming straight into the school,” said Connor Olsen, a junior at U-M studying business. “However, I do think there’s going to come a time where they’re going to matter. And it’s partially prolonging the inevitable that these grades are going to count, and you really do need to lock in your study schedule and figure out how to go to office hours and all these things that really count in your university experience.”

The pilot program has also faced criticism nationally including allegations that the school is coddling students, which McKay roundly rejects. Meanwhile, the U-M decision comes as Michigan policymakers weigh proposals on how to better prepare high school students for life after graduation.

Venessa Keesler, CEO and president of Launch Michigan, a bipartisan group working to change Michigan’s high school graduation requirements, told Bridge it’s interesting that conversations about the value of a grade are also happening at the college level.

“Education in general is saying kids can get all As and not be ready. So, why not? And it shifts the conversation to demonstrating mastery of skills, mastery of knowledge, mastery of competencies,” Keesler said.

Here is what to know about the U-M pilot program.

Will students still receive letter grades in class?

Yes.

Will this program exist for transfer students?

No. Transfer students are not eligible, according to the LSA website.

Can a student opt into showing their first semester grades on their transcript or them being calculated into their GPA?

McKay said the school is still figuring out the details but it is unlikely that the school will allow for first-semester grades to be factored into a student’s grade, even if a student’s first semester grades are good.

“We’re trying to say that we think the best summary of your experience on campus would not focus on your first semester. But would include the other grades that you have,” McKay said.

Where are student transcripts typically used?

McKay acknowledges that transcripts are used for graduate school applications but he said it’s more important how students perform in upper level courses.

“But we want to make sure that no one is or even feels harmed by this,” said McKay, who said the college will work on the specific details this upcoming school year.

Graduate programs also factor in standardized test scores for admission and employers use transcripts to verify a student completed their degree, said Keesler.

“I have said to my kids more than once that their bachelor’s degree is less about the grades and more about persistence,” Keesler said.

How many students will this affect?

The total number of students affected by the policy depends on how many first-year students there are next fall.

For context, there are nearly 5,000 students entering the college in fall 2026, according to McKay.

How will U-M measure if the program is successful?

McKay said the school will seek to measure two main things: academic exploration and student mental health.

The school can assess how many classes students are taking, whether there is a greater variety of classes being taken and if students are “acquiring the kind of early momentum that we know leads to on-time graduation and better academic performance.” How to measure mental health metrics is still being determined, McKay said, but he referenced the U-M Healthy Minds research, which is a national survey of college students about their mental health.

Sophia Xu, a microbiology and pre-med senior, said it’s good that the university is paying attention to student mental health.

“But I think that making the first semester pass/fail just shifts this issue onto (the) winter semester,” Xu said. “Because then winter semester is when people are going to be freaking out like ‘oh I actually have to try super hard now to maintain my GPA.’”

Is this policy opening up a broader conversation about the value of a letter grade?

Students on campus acknowledged that an A would be counted the same as a C on first-semester transcript.

Lily Wu, an economics and international studies senior, said the new policy is “a little too lenient” but one idea to give students some breathing room would be to eliminate the A-, taking some pressure off students so that an A- and A are the same.

Thomas Guskey, professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky’s College of Education who has studied grading policies, told Bridge he supports U-M’s “thoughtful approach.” “They’re saying let’s focus on learning instead of getting grades in the first year. We’ll set a pass/fail level. We’ll set the pass pretty high for it, so the students aren’t lackadaisical in what they’re doing. But then be able to approach this in a more reasonable and thoughtful and more educationally sound way.”

U-M has a 97% retention rate for full-time first-year students returning for their sophomore year, meaning “they’re doing this for educational reasons, not for money reasons,” Guskey said.

Still, Guskey said there are broader conversations about the value and meaning of grades. U-M should ensure faculty are grading students based on what they can achieve, not their performance relative to their peers, he said. Meanwhile, McKay of LSA acknowledges grades still have weight in many ways.

“We rely on these grades for many purposes, including things like financial aid and measuring a student’s progress toward (a) degree and all these things,” McKay said. “So we’re not interested in trying to unsettle the entire system. We just want to change the reaction that people have to the system.”

Denise Brown, a high school math teacher at Redford Union Schools, said the broader problem is the need for more rigor in high school.

“Even though they may have been the top student at their high school, it depends on how the curriculum has been taught. And most of the time, it is not up to the level that it should be because students are very focused on grades.”

She supports the U-M policy with hopes that the college has resources to help students succeed after they get feedback from teachers.

“I hope it’s setting the expectations for the students to know that you’re in a different environment and the expectations are now different and now you have to prepare yourself.”

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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.