[hazard]

After being in the workforce for decades, this whole issue is just so incomprehensible to me.

I went an ungrad school that was top-5 in engineering. But my experience - and in the experience of other people I've talked to - formal undergrad education was, and always has been, a farce. At best, you learn through working on projects that are meaningful to you and learn "how to be an adult" (and later, you learn how to manage the enormous financial debt you acquired). But more typically, it's pure credentialism - no one cares what your grades were, only what school you graduated from.

The amount of actual learning that goes on from classes is minimal, but somehow we can't shift the overton window away from this silly game of grades that don't measure anything meaningful.

After graduating, I've was asked about my grades exactly twice in my life -- once when I applied to a master's program, and at one job interview (the company had a policy of asking about GPA for anyone who graduated less than 10 years ago).

I'm pro-education but anti-school, and all this nonsense makes me this way even more.