The UNC Board of Governors voted in October to allow three historically black universities to accept students with SAT scores as low as 750, provided that they used a sliding scale for GPA. As a student’s SAT drops below 800 (the previous standard) he or she would need a higher GPA to be admitted. The BOG members and UNC general administration employees who championed the policy argued that GPA is a better predictor of success than SAT.

But a recent change at the NC State Board of Education means that standards for GPA will go down just as UNC is implementing this new policy. The Board of Education voted, also in October, to change high school grading from a 7-point scale to a 10-point scale.

The changes to the grading scale will widen the range for each letter grade and lower the minimum passing score. Instead of needing a 93 for an A, a student will only need a 90. This means that a 2.5 GPA (the minimum required for admission to the UNC system) will be equivalent to 75% instead of 80.5% in coming years.

This grade inflation at the high school level makes the new sliding GPA standards at Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, and NC Central completely meaningless. Instead of raising GPA standards while SAT standards fell, both will now be lower–and students at those schools will be even less likely to graduate.