The Jet Propulsion Laboratory attracts 45,000 visitors at their semi-annual open house (disclaimer: I work there). (limited now to 15,000 / event).

They have museums, exhibits, etc. The Space Flight Simulator and Space Flight Operations Facility are historical monuments. SFOF is the hub of all incoming data from the Deep Space Network ... and essentially every bit of information passed from remote probes to humankind.

all ridesharing transportation partners carry best-in-class commercial insurance coverage in the event of an accident.

Also, their coverage is considerably higher (in dollar amount) than commercial taxis in major cities. Uber provides this for their drivers. The drivers do not need to purchase this.

source: http://blog.uber.com/uberXride...

I disagree. 90% of the population would not be able to complete the education or would drop out. The selection criteria exist to make sure that the bottom line is met in an institution which must spend money to provide a complete education. Drop outs are costly.

You might want to take note of the following quote from the article, which I completely agree with.

He now recommends keeping the same GPA measure, but perhaps using the adjusted GPA to distinguish students with a special mark or honor so that graduate schools and employers know the student stood out.

In my opinion, school is primarily for education. If you learn all of the material satisfactorily, then you have earned an A. If you want impose some sorting (to distinguish certain students), provide limited access to undergraduate research and project-based courses which have an internal application process or require extra work. Don't expect to put everyone in the same bucket and have them naturally separate any more.

In my second opinion, this is the new norm, and we shouldn't be trying to focus on fixing the big "inflation" (degree inflation, tuition inflation, grade inflation)., which is necessarily a backwards-facing perspective.

I know!

• How dare they take research dollars and research new technologies?
• How dare they follow through with successful research by *forming a business in the U.S. of A.* the very country that funded the research.
• How dare they take advantage of NSF-funded programs to transfer successful research to US-based businesses? It's almost like they (congress, policymakers, and business) wanted this to happen.
• How dare they use a volunteer-based peer review system to verify the findings and disseminate the results?
• Finally, how dare they use the NSF-mandated Data magagement plan to make all data available to the public and other researchers? Clearly they are trying to dupe us all now!

Source: NSF funded researcher. Disclaimer: NSF-funded researcher.

First, I'd say you can always find some schools where it is easier to get A's than it was. But it probably isn't a trend.

Second, if it is a trend, do not blame the teachers. This is an administrators' issue. At my University (where I teach and TA), there is a huge push to increase graduation rates. Sounds great, since graduation rate is a huge problem where diversity is high and support is low. Unfortunately, the easiest way to get X students / year is to "lower the bar."

However, the teachers always fight back against this. In general, the average graduating student with a decent GPA is in fact a good representation of what we want a student to look like. So, thanks in part to the tenure system (in which curmudgeonly teachers can't be ousted by angry administrators), we still have high standards for our honor students.

That's a sweeping and unfair generalization.

After watching my friend suffer through multiple miscarriages related to her uterine lining, and the grief it caused her and her husband (also a great friend), I can say without a doubt: Yes, there will be a market for this.