For better or for worse, by the time a student graduates from high school or college, he or she has likely developed a semi-intimate relationship with his or her GPA, or grade-point average. Though GPAs might be calculated differently from school to school, they are classically measured on a 4.0 scale, which each letter grade -- A, B+, C-, etc. -- receiving a corresponding numerical value. (So, A = 4, B = 3.4, C = 2.7 etc.) The numerical average of all your grades is your GPA. There are many disputes out there about the merits of grading and of GPAs, but one thing is for sure: GPAs provide an admittedly narrow but convenient way of assessing academic achievement. The GPA is a hard number, not a subjective approximation or judgment call; since GPAs are earned over a long period of time, they can reflect the efforts put into an entire academic career. Consistency is what counts with GPAs: one-off negative results are averaged out while consistently positive results gradually raise the score.
People Capital believes that prospective undergraduate or graduate students in search of the best student loans should be rewarded for all the hard work they put into their GPAs. This is why the GPA is one of the hard-data factors included in a student's Human Capital Score assessment, People Capital's trademarked method for producing a credit-risk analysis.
To learn more about the Human Capital Score, please click here.