Students Don’t Need Less Accountability

The University of Michigan recently announced a significant change to the way thousands of its freshmen will experience college. Beginning in fall 2027, students in the university’s largest college will not receive traditional letter grades during their first semester. Instead, their transcripts will record either “Pass” or “No Credit.”

Understandably, the transition from high school to college can be brutal. Students leave behind familiar teachers, parents, counselors, routines, and expectations and suddenly find themselves responsible for managing an enormous amount of work on their own. College students deal with burgeoning loneliness and financial pressures amid a generational mental-health crisis that universities can hardly afford to ignore.

If removing letter grades for one semester can make that transition easier, why not do it?