What is the average GPA? What the national data actually shows

The average high school GPA in the U.S. is 3.11 on an unweighted 4.0 scale, according to the federal transcript study of the class of 2019, up from 2.68 in 1990. There is no official national average for college GPA. Colleges publish their own numbers, and those swing widely from one school to the next.

That 3.11 is the only national figure built from real transcripts, so it’s worth knowing what it leaves out and why most other “average GPAs” online are higher. For benchmarks by goal, see what is a good GPA? This guide is about the averages themselves.

Average high school GPA, 1987 to 2019

The National Center for Education Statistics runs the High School Transcript Study about once a decade. For 2019, it collected transcripts from 47,000 graduates at a nationally representative sample of 1,400 schools. Here’s the full series:

Each study in that table came in higher than the one before it. Over 32 years the average rose almost half a letter grade, from a C+/B- line to a solid B.

Two details about the method matter. The study weights each class by its Carnegie credits, so a semester course counts half as much as a full-year one. And, as the 2009 report spells out, its GPAs “were not adjusted for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or other honors classes.” Pass/fail classes are left out. So 3.11 is an unweighted average of every graded class, PE and electives included.

The averages also differ by group. In the 2019 study, female graduates averaged 3.23 and male graduates 3.00. By race and ethnicity, Asian/Pacific Islander graduates averaged 3.39, White graduates 3.23, Hispanic graduates 2.95 and Black graduates 2.83.

Average GPA by subject

Your overall GPA hides a pattern that has held for decades: students earn their lowest grades in math and their highest in electives.

The 1990 and 2000 figures are from NCES Table 6; the 2009 ones from Figure 9 of the 2009 report, which covers core subjects only.

Look at the gap in 2000: a 2.60 in math against a 3.38 in fine arts. Electives pull the overall average up by a lot, and that’s a big reason colleges recalculate GPAs using core academic classes only. The 2009 report shows the effect directly: graduates averaged 3.00 overall but 2.79 in core academic courses.

Is grade inflation real?

Rising GPAs could mean students are learning more. The evidence doesn’t back that up.

The federal data. Between 2009 and 2019, graduates took more rigorous courses and earned higher grades. But the Governing Board’s release notes that average NAEP 12th-grade math scores declined among students with midlevel and rigorous coursework, and science scores showed no significant change at any curriculum level. Mark Schneider, then director of the Institute of Education Sciences, argued in a March 2022 blog post that grades and course titles were inflating while student performance stagnated.

ACT’s research. ACT tracks the grades students report to it, averaged across up to 23 core courses. Its July 2026 report, High School Grade Inflation and Academically Discrepant College Readiness Indicators, summarizes the trend: average GPA rose from about 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021, while the average ACT Composite fell from about 21.0 to 20.3. By 2020, according to the same report, more than half of high school graduates were earning an A average, up from about two-fifths a decade earlier. It also estimates that about 28% of the 2023–24 cohort had grades that substantially outpaced their test scores.

ACT’s 2023 subject-level study found the biggest rise in math. These are adjusted averages, controlling for student and school characteristics:

ACT’s averages run well above the federal 3.11, and that isn’t a contradiction. ACT’s numbers are self-reported by students who took the ACT, while the transcript study reads actual transcripts from all graduates.

It’s happening in college too. Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education published an October 2025 report on grading (posted by The Chronicle of Higher Education) showing that A’s made up 24% of all grades in Harvard College in 2005, 40.3% in 2015 and 60.2% in 2025. The GPA cutoff for summa cum laude in 2025 was 3.989.

The “average GPA for college admission” number

When a website says a college’s “average GPA of admitted students” is 3.9 or 4.2, the figure usually traces back to the school’s Common Data Set, a standard form colleges fill out every year. The form’s wording is more specific than the websites suggest.

• Section C11 asks for the percentage of “enrolled, degree-seeking, first-time, first-year students” in each GPA range, “using 4.0 scale.”
• Section C12 asks for the average high school GPA of those same first-year students who submitted one, and the percentage who submitted it.

So the number describes students who enrolled, not everyone who was admitted, and only the ones who reported a GPA. At the University of Michigan, that was 97.8% of first-year students in 2025–26. At UNC-Chapel Hill it was 89.9%.

C12 also doesn’t say which scale to use, and that’s where weighted GPAs creep in. UNC-Chapel Hill’s 2025–26 Common Data Set puts 94.6% of enrolled first-year students in the “4.0” bracket of C11, then reports an average GPA of 4.47 in C12. Nobody averages 4.47 on an unweighted 4.0 scale. That average includes the extra points from Honors and AP classes. UNC’s form also splits the C11 ranges by testing: 96.3% of students who submitted test scores were in the 4.0 bracket, against 92.0% of those who didn’t.

The quick check: if a college’s C12 average is above 4.0, compare it with your weighted GPA, not your unweighted one. The weighted GPA calculator gives you both from the same list of classes.

Is there an average college GPA?

Not an official one. The federal government collects college GPAs through the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, but there’s no regularly published national average. What NCES does publish are narrower tables. One of those NCES tables shows that 8.7% of financially dependent undergraduates at public four-year colleges had a GPA below 2.0 in 2015–16, down from 9.8% in 2003–04.

The College Board’s BigFuture site says the average across U.S. colleges is 3.1 but doesn’t cite a source. Other figures online usually come from one school, one survey or one set of self-reported data, and get repeated as if they were national.

What you can find are the numbers individual colleges publish. The University of South Alabama’s fact book is a good example, because it reports by class year and by college for fall 2024:

The same table lists Arts and Sciences at 3.07 and Education at 3.02. Freshmen sit about four-tenths of a point below seniors. Some of that is likely the adjustment to college grading, and some is who’s left: seniors are the students who made it through three years.

Average GPA by major

There’s no national table of GPA by major for all college students either. The closest thing is medical school data. The Association of American Medical Colleges’ Table A-17 breaks down more than 52,000 applicants to U.S. MD programs in the 2023–24 cycle by major:

These are premed students, so the averages sit far above any typical campus. The spread between majors is only a tenth of a point.

How to use these averages

Compare like with like. The 3.11 national figure is unweighted and includes every class, so set it against your unweighted overall GPA. A college’s C12 number may be weighted. A college average applies to that campus only.

To get both your unweighted and weighted numbers, put your classes into the GPA calculator. If a college or scholarship lists its own scale, the GPA scale guide shows how the same grades can turn into different numbers.