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The ChatGPT era prompts a boom in A-graded coursework

By rivo_admin · May 16, 2026 · 3 min read

Some college classes are seeing a boom in students earning A’s — many with the help of AI.

Why it matters: Universities and colleges were already concerned about how many students are earning A’s and B’s, but now must worry that graduates are leaving AI-proficient rather than knowledgeable about their subjects of study.

The big picture: It isn’t a case where A- students get a slight bump to an A or A+, says Igor Chirikov, a UC Berkeley professor who authored a study on AI and grade inflation.

“We have a C student who is now an A student,” Chirikov tells Axios, citing data from grades given between 2018 and 2025 at a Texas research university.

What they found: Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, “excellent” grades rose by 30% in classes where AI is useful, such as English composition and coding.

In classes where it’s not — like sculpture and lab-based courses — grades remained flat.

Worth noting: Chirikov didn’t name the university used in the study, but says that it’s a “selective” school with over 50,000 students across all major academic disciplines.

“I don’t want to single out one university, just because I believe it’s not specific to that particular university. It’s something that’s happening across the higher ed sector.”
He also says he chose the university because its grade distribution data is publicly available.

Zoom in: Excellent grades have been on the rise since the early 2000s, but Chirikov found that classes that place more weight on homework assignments than on in-class exams see higher rates of grade inflation.

That pattern suggested that unsupervised work is getting an AI-assisted boost, he says.
Another issue with the grading scale is that faculty are sometimes incentivized to “grade more leniently” as student evaluations of their work are often tied to a professor being promoted, Chirikov says.

Zoom out: There is no “silver bullet” to stop AI from inflating GPAs, nor is it a new concept that students have inflated GPAs, he says.

“There are many cases when students can select easier courses and get easier A’s, and their GPA will be higher. And I think AI just exacerbates the existing trends,” Chirikov says.
Regardless, professors have already been getting crafty to crack down on AI-fueled cheating, like requiring handwritten or oral exams.

The bottom line: “We need to be creative and think of AI-integrated assignments, and that students can use [LLMs], but they should properly document that,” Chirikov says.