Jasmine Neosh had arrived at an inflection point. In the fall of 2016, the Menominee tribal member was waiting tables and tending bar at an upscale Chicago eatery as the protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline grew into a full-blown crisis in the northern Plains.

As Neosh sat eating lunch between shifts and fuming about what she saw as a fundamental betrayal of the Standing Rock Sioux and their Native allies, she realized there was only one solution: Finish her education and get to work.

When colleges first shut down more than 18 months ago in response to the coronavirus, it didn’t take long for the prognostications about higher education’s future to begin.

Sharp declines in enrollment, and in revenues from room and board, were imminent. Some students would sit out a year or transfer to institutions with cheaper tuition. And perhaps the most dire: The pandemic would be the death knell for institutions that, for years, had been barely hanging on. Some predictions came to fruition; others were off base. 

The current grading system can be a way for students to prove themselves, win college scholarships, or gain admission to highly selective colleges. It also can turn into a game that encourages comparison to fictional “averages.”

This episode of Bootstraps explores the history behind today’s grading systems—plus reimagines a world where letter grades don’t have so much power.