Freshmen entering the University of Michigan’s largest undergraduate college in 2027 will spend their first semester receiving letter grades that will ultimately disappear from their official transcripts, part of a new policy university officials say is intended to ease the transition to college and address student mental health concerns.
Beginning in fall 2027, first-year students in the university’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will have their first-semester courses recorded on their transcripts simply as “P” for pass or “NC” for no credit.
Students will still receive letter grades from their professors during the semester. The difference comes afterward: those final letter grades will not appear on their transcripts and will not count toward their grade-point averages.
And freshmen will not be allowed to opt out.
The university says the change is intended to “curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals” while giving new students time to adjust to university-level academic demands.
“Our goal is to help first-year students acclimate to the demands of college and allow intrinsic motivations to guide personally meaningful academic journeys — core elements of a liberal arts and sciences education,” the university explained.
The policy will affect students entering LSA, the largest of Michigan’s 19 colleges. The college serves approximately 19,700 undergraduates and encompasses a broad range of liberal arts and sciences disciplines.
University officials argue that temporarily removing traditional grades from transcripts will encourage freshmen to experiment academically without worrying that one difficult class could follow them throughout their college careers.
“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 said.
“LSA is investing in students’ well-being and growth by fostering a culture of connection and collaboration — rather than competition.”
But the grades are not actually being eliminated.
Michigan will retain students’ first-semester letter grades internally, and those grades can still be used for a substantial list of administrative purposes. According to the university, that includes academic advising, scholarships and awards, internship and professional applications, athletic eligibility, financial aid determinations, degree progress, and compliance reporting.
In other words, professors will still grade students in the traditional manner, students will still see those grades, and the university will still possess them. What changes is how that first semester appears on the official transcript and whether those grades contribute to the student’s GPA.
The policy applies specifically to incoming LSA freshmen beginning in fall 2027. Students cannot choose to keep their conventional grades on their transcripts instead.
University officials argue that allowing students to make that choice would undermine the purpose of implementing the policy across the incoming class.
“An opt-in structure would defeat the purpose of facilitating students’ transition to campus, supporting mental health and well-being, and bolstering intrinsic motivations for learning,” the university said.
Michigan is not the first elite institution to experiment with a modified grading system for freshmen. MIT, Caltech, and Swarthmore College have implemented variations on pass/no-record or pass/fail approaches for new students.
The justification nevertheless raises a larger question about what universities should consider an appropriate response to academic stress.
Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, author of “Therapy Nation,” argues that shielding first-semester students from the lasting consequences of poor grades risks teaching precisely the wrong lesson.
“We’re raising a generation of students to believe that discomfort is dangerous,” Alpert told Fox News Digital.
“It isn’t. A bad grade can be upsetting, embarrassing and stressful. That’s not a mental health emergency. That’s college.”
His criticism targets the premise that reducing academic consequences is an appropriate way to address students’ psychological well-being. College, in Alpert’s view, should provide an environment where young adults encounter setbacks and learn that they can handle them.
“This is therapy culture invading the classroom,” he said. “We’ve spent years turning normal human emotions into symptoms. Stress becomes a mental health issue.”
That distinction is central to the argument over Michigan’s policy.
There is little dispute that the transition from high school to a demanding university can be stressful. The disagreement concerns what institutions should do about that stress.
Michigan’s answer is to create a one-semester buffer. Freshmen will receive feedback through ordinary grades, but those grades will largely be insulated from their permanent academic record. Administrators hope that arrangement will encourage exploration, reduce competition, and allow students to focus more heavily on learning itself.
Critics such as Alpert see a different risk: students could emerge from their first semester less accustomed to the consequences that accompany poor performance in later semesters and eventually in professional life.
“College should be one of the places where young people discover that they’re tougher than they think,” Alpert said.
There is another practical wrinkle. Once the protected semester ends, the traditional grading system returns. Students who spent their first months at Michigan without letter grades affecting their GPA will then have to make the transition to precisely the academic consequences the policy temporarily removes.
Whether that produces better-adjusted students or merely postpones the pressure is the experiment Michigan is preparing to conduct on its 2027 freshman class.
Alpert’s objection is considerably simpler.
“A bad grade isn’t psychological harm,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the wake-up call a student needs.”
