Grade inflation is among the oldest and thorniest problems in higher education. In 1894 a committee at Harvard University reported that A's and B's were awarded "too readily." But after more than a century of fulmination, there is little agreement on the cause or how to fix it. There is even contentious debate about whether the phenomenon of grade inflation exists at all. It is the question at the center of a new collection of essays, "Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education" (State University of New York Press). Those who believe that grade inflation exists say that when colleges do try to hold grades in check or make professors accountable, they usually fail. In this article, the authors enumerate the reasons for grade inflation and the possible cure for this.