The phenomenon of grade inflation has been studied extensively at high school and undergraduate levels, yet little is known about its occurrence in graduate education. This study bridges this gap by examining graduate grade inflation using data from one U.S. research intensive university, covering two decades of admissions across 75 master's programs (N = 24,815) and 78 doctoral programs (N = 15,701). Relying on both linear and ordinal multilevel models, we investigated the presence of grade inflation and potential variations by degree level and individual academic programs at the program level. Our findings provide preliminary evidence for the presence of graduate grade inflation and suggest that the magnitudes differ across individual academic programs. There is also evidence showing that the trend of grade inflation significantly differed across master's and doctoral programs. This apparent inflation undermines the signaling value of grades for employers and admission decisions in the labor market and academic selection, as well as for research, feedback, and learning purposes. Future research should replicate our findings using multi-institutional samples and examine drivers of graduate grade inflation to more accurately estimate its magnitude. Understanding whether grade inflation exists at a graduate level is a first step toward addressing other questions asked at secondary and undergraduate levels. Grade inflation: why should we care? Signaling theory [ 25 ] suggests that because underlying characteristics are difficult to observe directly, individuals rely on signals to guide important decisions such as hiring and school admission. In the educational context, academic achievement (i.e., GPA) serves as one such signal. Similarly, graduate school grades in a master’s program are often considered for admissions into a doctoral program. Students performing well academically will have a higher chance of getting rewards. The inherent reduction in variability in school grades that comes with grade inflation may make it more difficult to differentiate students. Over time, this may render school grades less useful for making such decisions. Accordingly, if grade inflation reduces the meaningfulness of school grades and creates a scenario where everything yields an A, its utility as feedback to students will also decline. After all, there is little reason to seek additional feedback or alter performance or learning strategies if they make little to no difference to their grade. Critically, when instructor-assigned grades provide limited signal to students, alternative evaluation methods such as structured peer assessment where students provide and receive feedback, may be considered. In a group of graduate students, Landry et al. [ 11 ] found that class size is inversely correlated with students’ grades and that faculty tend to use different instructional methods for introductory compared to advanced courses. Furthermore, the perceived value of school grades may also differ for master’s and doctoral graduates. Grades often matter less to employers and students at doctoral level as students are generally valued more for their domain-specific knowledge and specific accomplishments like publications than their school grades, and doctoral students face less pressure when it comes to education advancement. Our grouping variable was academic programs, which were recoded to be consistent with CIP, a taxonomy of academic titles developed by the U.S. Department of Education [ 46 ]. Examples of CIP programs include research and experimental psychology, educational psychology, history, physics, and geography. The full list of CIP programs available in the current study is included in Tables S1a and S1b in S1 File in the supporting materials. Graduate Cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA). Individual graduate school performance was operationalized as their cumulative GPA after they have completed all required coursework for their program. GPA information was extracted from university records. N = the number of student GPAs evaluated; M = the mean of variable; GPA is the Graduate school cumulative grade point average. To test our assumptions, for normality, residuals at both level 1 and level 2 were inspected using QQ plots, showing evidence for normality. For homoskedasticity of variance, we examined fitted values versus residuals plots and found evidence violation of homoskedasticity. This is unsurprisingly as our dependent variable, GPA, is bounded between 0 and 4. Therefore, we utilized robust standard errors produced from sandwich estimator for our fixed effect estimates to ensure accurate inference. Importantly, an increasingly compressed range of grades may compromise school grades’ criterion-related validity (and hence their utility) for predicting important outcomes such as future academic performance as well as job performance, thereby increasing the risk of admitting or hiring undesirable candidates, which can be costly to organizations [e.g., 43 ]. Finally, to the extent that grades are intended to give student accurate feedback about their performance, the results suggest that, increasingly, grading may be failing at that task. The average GPA was already an “A” average 25 years ago and it steadily compressed what was already a In parallel with prior research on undergraduate education, our results suggest that graduate grade inflation exists and that its extent varies across different academic programs. Grade inflation appears to be more pronounced at the master’s level than at the doctoral level. Our findings offer valuable insights to both employers and educators by demonstrating that the signaling power of graduate school grades in reflecting student quality may not remain constant over time. Supporting information S1 File Table S1a. List of CIP master’s programs included in the current study. Table S1B. List of CIP doctoral programs included in the current study. Table S2a.