Everything might be bigger in Texas, but everything is more sophisticated in France – art, food, even the homeless.
On a recent weekend expedition to Paris, I discovered that each bridge over the Seine came equipped with its own street person, each with his own sign asking for money and a basket containing a well-groomed and well-fed dog.
I’ve never seen street people who care for pets the way they do in Paris.
Nobel Prize winner Michael Spence would likely explain the dog-keeping as an example of what economists call signaling; a purposeful device that reveals information about yourself to others. The information Paris’ dog keepers want to reveal is they won’t simply blow any handouts on booze and fireworks.
A good signal, paradoxically, is costly to the signaler. If you’re homeless, keeping a dog is a burden, but it tells passersby you’re responsible to others’ desires and thoughtful about how you might spend any money they leave. For modestly paternalistic passersby, that may make the difference between leaving a Euro or simply walking away.
All of this brings the debate over plus/minus grading to my mind. I don’t particularly want to argue a position; there seem to be reasonable arguments on both sides. Instead, I’d like to offer a perspective that draws on what I learned from the French.
Because nobody really cares whether the beggar has a poodle or a pomeranian, it’s the fact they have the dog at all. Likewise, what really matters about your grades is not whether they’re transcribed as a 3.7 or a 3.6, it’s the fact they show up at all that matters. A college degree is like a dog to a homeless person: a costly endeavor that reveals something about the character of the owner.
Of course, you want to “take care of your dog.” It sends a poor signal to neglect your dog in Paris, and it sends a poor signal to neglect your transcript in Baldwin City.
When we talk about a diploma sending a costly signal to employers, we’re talking about the difficulty of earning the degree, and not how many zeros appear on the tuition check.
This is why Baker graduates get hired readily and graduates of online diploma mills don’t. If you believe the plus/minus system will make it harder to get a Baker degree, you may find some comfort in Spence’s work, which suggests the harder that degree is to earn, the stronger the signal it sends to others.
To that end, perhaps it makes sense to spend less time worrying about plus/minus and more time encouraging Baker to establish rigorous standards, vigorously enforced.