The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) will suppress first-term grades for incoming freshmen in an effort to “curb the mental health crisis” among students, according to the New York Post, a move that reflects a broader trend in higher education toward emotional cushioning rather than academic rigor, as reported by Western Journal. Under the new policy, students will still see the grades they earn, but those marks will not appear on official transcripts, meaning parents, future employers, and even graduate schools will see only a sanitized record.
Instead of the familiar A-through-F scale, transcripts for that first term will display a simple “P” for passing or “NC” for no credit, obscuring whether a student barely scraped by or failed spectacularly. The traditional grading system will resume in the second semester, once students have been eased into college life under this protective umbrella.
August 10, 2026
Administrators insist the policy will not hinder students who need detailed grades for “academic awards, scholarships, internships, and the like,” noting that full records will still be accessible when necessary. What will disappear is the possibility that a first-semester transcript “festooned with the letter ‘f’” might follow a student for years, a prospect the college now treats as too psychologically burdensome.
“Helping all students establish early momentum has been recognized as the most important element in U-M’s campus-wide Student Success Initiative,” the college wrote, framing the change as part of a broader institutional push to boost retention and graduation rates. “We believe that covering grades will help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,” it said, explicitly tying academic opacity to emotional well-being.
The policy applies only to LSA, which enrolls the largest share of undergraduates at the university, effectively making this an experiment on a substantial portion of Michigan’s student body. Within that experiment, the college openly celebrates the “joys of self-exploration” and academic risk-taking, but notably without the full weight of academic consequences.
“For example, they can explore a subject that may not come easily to them or take a course in a new field without the fear that a low grade may have long-term consequences,” the university wrote, according to Fox News, suggesting that intellectual curiosity now requires insulation from failure. “LSA is investing in students’ well-being and growth by fostering a culture of connection and collaboration — rather than competition,” the college said, signaling a philosophical shift away from merit-based differentiation.
Michigan is not alone in this approach, as institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Swarthmore College, and Wellesley College have adopted similar first-year grading schemes. Yet critics argue that what is marketed as compassion is, in practice, another step in the long march toward coddling students and eroding standards that once defined higher education.
Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert is among those sounding the alarm, arguing that this generation of undergraduates is being ill-served by policies that treat ordinary setbacks as trauma. “We’re raising a generation of students to believe that discomfort is dangerous,” Alpert said. “It isn’t. A bad grade can be upsetting, embarrassing and stressful. That’s not a mental health emergency. That’s college.”
Alpert warned that students shielded from the consequences of poor performance will be ill-prepared for the demands of adult life, where accountability is non-negotiable. “This is therapy culture invading the classroom. We’ve spent years turning normal human emotions into symptoms. Stress becomes a mental health issue,” Alpert said, criticizing the conflation of everyday challenges with clinical conditions.
“We’ve gotten to the point where normal stress is being treated like a mental health problem. Getting a bad grade is disappointing. It can be embarrassing. It can make you anxious. But that doesn’t make it psychologically harmful,” Alpert told the Post, underscoring the distinction between discomfort and genuine damage.
“College should prepare students for adulthood. Your boss isn’t going to hide a bad performance review because it might make you anxious. Life doesn’t come with grade covering. At some point, young people have to learn that feeling bad is not the same thing as being harmed,” he said, capturing a concern many conservatives share about a culture that increasingly prioritizes emotional ease over resilience, responsibility, and the hard lessons that once defined a serious education.
