Earlier quoted context omitted.
My uncle is a professor. This is what he said is required of him. Perhaps universities like harvard have lower standards. In any case, consider that this system is in fact a solution to the proposed problem.
> Perhaps universities like harvard have lower standards. Believe me, I'll be first in line to shame their academic standards. However... > In any case, consider that this system is in fact a solution to the proposed problem. It might. I think that it creates other sinister problems in the process. You have to ask whether you think that the purpose of going to school is to better yourself versus competing against you…
It must be both. In order to better yourself, you must challenge yourself. Your peers have similar capabilities to you, because you both met roughly the same standard in order to get into the school you got into, as opposed to a better or worse one. Competing with them will therefore be challenging, but not too challenging.
Note that I don't propose the average is set at precisely 75%, nor that professors change the weights after the fact to make it so. Just that when they are setting the course - choosing what material to cover, what to leave out, setting the exam - they bear in mind the aptitudes of their students and choose appropriately. If the grades come in too high, meaning the students found it too easy, they might in future terms increase the pace or the difficulty of questions to compensate. This means that as a student you aren't competing with your class, but rather with the body of students that came before. In turn, you gain nothing from doing poorly, because you will still be awarded a proportionately low grade, and only make the course easier for future students.
Why this isn't implemented at the schools you attended I could only guess, but perhaps these schools historically determined standard based on more objective criteria, and have ceased doing so more recently without replacing their system for determining standards.