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Beyond Grade Inflation: Grading Problems in Higher Education (review)

particularly in its exploration of financing graduate education and student research productivity. The impetus for this study was to understand how doctoral students finance their educations, so the study collected detailed financial information. We learn about the prevalence, timing, and relative access by different groups of students to the major categories of financial support (fellowship, RAship, TAship). Unfortunately, the complexity of how students manage the financial juggling act is not fully revealed. It would be helpful to know how students “cobble together funding from multiple sources” (p. 87), their reliance on other financial sources (travel grants, employer’s tuition assistance), or availability of nonfinancial support (health insurance, child care). Another important contribution of this study is its detailed analysis of students’ research productivity. The survey asked about 21 different research products by students—from patent applications, to grant writing, to conference presentations. Disappointingly, only half (51%) had produced a tangible research product, and these students generally only publish articles and present papers. Moreover, African American students are relatively less productive than their peers, regardless of discipline. It is plausible, however, that this estimate of research productivity, as well as other reports of student experiences, is an underestimate. Logically, students at the end of doctoral study are more likely to have published an article or presented a paper than those at the beginning, but we are not told how responses are distributed by year of study, nor their distribution across the eight stages of doctoral study the authors identified. Readers can feel reassured that more than half of doctoral completers will have created a research product by the time they receive their doctorate, but this comfort should not minimize the important differences in productivity that the authors point out. Crucially, we learn that “having a mentor and a research assistantship are so highly predictive of research productivity across disciplines and demographic groups that this should become a departmental benchmark for creating optimal doctoral student experiences” (p. 200). Too often important insights like this one, which have direct implications for practice, are buried. A second, shorter volume that highlights the intersections of aspects of doctoral education (in this case having a mentor, having a research assistantship, and being a productive researcher) or that lays out questions and trade-offs (like those about funding older doctoral students discussed earlier) would be a valuable companion volume more suited for faculty members at doctoralgranting institutions. Such a volume could provide a vision of what doctoral education ought to be based on the authors’ rich understanding of what is, without overgeneralizing across important dimensions of difference. I urge the authors to seriously consider such a project to spread their message more widely.