Should Grades Get Monetized?

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You know, I’ve always wondered about how our academic life would be if our grades were monetized. That is if we were motivated to perform well academically, we would get some monetary reward or something. Maybe the top three students would get a substantial sum of money, enough to tide them over for the next semester or thereabout. It would be a great development, right?

I can just imagine it. As long as making money is involved, there are a lot of people who will happily study hard and make those grades. Even those who you never thought had any potential when it comes to academics will be the ones to shock you with just how much they can achieve when they put their minds to it. I can assure you that if this happens, the rate of successful students will improve and the school will become an even more competitive space.

But then, I have to admit that the downsides to this far outweigh the upsides. No matter how you look at it, there will be more demerits to this effort. While some people will be genuinely interested in earning their top grades the right way, there will be many more who will want to earn it through crooked means.

Students are already cheating when grades aren’t monetized, it would only get worse once money gets involved. The students will become even more creative to get that top grade as they try their best to make sure that they easily slide through the cracks of the ever-watchful eye of the authorities.

Malpractice isn’t the only issue at play here, even the lecturers will be corrupted. Lecturers could be biased and choose to favor their favorite students over others who deserve the money more. Now, we already see people swapping out grades just to get their own into the coveted position, once it gets monetized, lecturers will be merciless.

Some lecturers who know of the money will choose to be wicked. They will purposely make life as difficult as they can for their students and for no reason at all other than the fact that they don’t want their students to get the money. There are also those who will choose to work with students because they have designs on the money as well. It’ll go something like; “If I help you get top grades, you’ll give me 50% of the money.”

If we’re being honest, many students will jump on it because not only do you get the money, but you also get top grades. Sadly, many of those who will subscribe to this are mainly those who might never stand a chance on their own. Meanwhile, those who actually deserve the top spots would be relegated to somewhere down below.

There are just so many things that can go wrong with something like this, and everything only stems from greed. It stems from people choosing to take things without having to work for them. I know that something like that will never happen. Although schools give monetary rewards to exceptional students, the money is never substantial enough to stand as a motivation to be the best. People already lobby for scholarships, and admissions, giving it to their own people. Something like this would be no different.

So, all in all, monetizing grades will not really change anything because eventually corruption will take over the system and people will just choose to do what they can, get their grades, and move on with their lives. I guess it’s good all the same.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.

N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.