Robert Hanson posted an article asking why, if people were willing to redistribute income, they weren’t willing to redistribute their GPAs? The Economist responded to it by looking at all the way that GPAs are redistributed in pursuit of egalitarianism. Some of the points include:

• If income worked in the same way that grades do then income would be capped at $2 million a year in America. Why? Because grades, unlike income, have an upper limit.
• Grading is often done on a curve – explicitly rationing grades on a pre-determined grade distribution
• A 3.0 GPA in the worst school is worth less than 1.0 GPA in the best, yet both are treated equally

There are a few other interesting arguments, it’s worth a read.

Source: The Economist