I have seen a pretty consistent grade decline in my classes the last 15 years. Some semesters are different than others but generally there is a decline. I teach mostly freshman and sophomore courses but I also teach a masters level course.

I'm pretty bummed today because in my Masters level course 6 out of 20 students used AI to write their mid semesters papers. That hasn't happened before now. Of those 6 it looks like 1 is going to get tossed out of the program because they haven't been very professional in other ways. The other 5 - I am not sure what's going to happen to them.

I just got done grading my intro level course first exam. The 2024 exam 1 average = 61%. As I go back and look at the trend over the last 15 years it looks like this (using 3 year increments):
2021 - 62%
2018 - 65%
2015 - 68%
2012 - 74%
2009 - 77%

It's wild to me that it has fallen that far off. Over the years - I have changed my teaching style a little bit but the exam has been pretty much the same. I used to get tons of B's and C's on the exam. Now I get a handful of A's and tons of F's with very few B's and C's.

Pretty wild.