CHAPEL HILL, NC — UNC students and faculty experienced chaos this afternoon, when a faulty valve caused the economics department’s grade-inflating pump to shut down for a period of several hours.
The valve failed without warning at approximately 1:30 pm, causing catastrophic grade deflation across campus. The collective grade point average of economics majors and pre-business students at UNC fell to a C average within a matter of seconds.
“I was on ConnectCarolina searching for classes, and all of a sudden, it said my GPA was a 2.2,” recounted Sam Guthrie, a junior economics major who had maintained a 3.8 since his freshman year. “And I was like ‘What the fuck?’ I had read at least half of the assignments for all those classes. I deserved my A minuses.”
Patrick Conway, chairman of the economics department, was inundated with complaints soon after the pump failed.
“I knew it had to be that old grade-inflating pump again,” said Conway. “I called UNC Facilities Services as soon as I heard that undergraduate grades were dipping below a B level.”
Promptly dispatched to the pump in the basement of Gardner Hall, repairman Barry Gartman quickly identified the cause of the outage.
“It takes a lot of pressure to inflate grades as much as we do, and with that much pressure in the system, any little crack in a pump valve can be disastrous,” said Gartman. “When the valve failed, the pressurized bullshit and hot air that keep the grades inflated spewed all over. It was a real mess.”
Gartman brought the pump back online at 3:13 pm, re-inflating grades all around campus. He characterized the pump break as a big problem with a relatively easy fix.
“All it took was to install a new valve and check the pump over for residual damage,” he said. “People on campus depend on this pump every day, and, unfortunately, it only gets realized on the rare occasion that something goes wrong.”
The pump failure was the most disastrous malfunction in grade-manipulating infrastructure at UNC since the biology department’s bell-curve mold broke in the spring of 2009, resulting in a semester grade distribution of 43% F’s, 3% D’s, 19% C’s, 6% B’s, and 29% A’s.
As economics students and professors sort through the damage caused by the grade-inflating pump’s failure, many are calling for failsafe upgrades, with some contending that the department’s entire grade-inflating apparatus should be abandoned in favor of a newer model.
“Over at Duke, they have a state-of-the-art, campus-wide, electric inflation system,” said Conway. “It’s high time that we followed suit and brought our grade-inflating technology into the 21st century.”
The Minor 
Can someone please send Mr. Gartman over to Philips Hall?
Oh please, we are way above that. Our 3.0 pretty much translates to their 4.0.
Holy late reply Batman!
Also, it was a joke, hence the whole satire website thing.
The Econ department has never inflated grades, and the professors in the UNC Econ department are much too mathematically conscious to appropriate the correct grade to the right students, reasonable to understand when a grade is and is not earned, competent to invite regular grading audits at any time, and jolly enough to laugh at anyone who can possibly think of a scheme to detract from their exceedingly precise university standard grading criteria. Boy, I WiSH there were a grade inflation in the Econ dept but there honestly is none and I’m working my ass off to get a passing grade in every Econ class. Econ is my major so come over here and let me show you how to derive our national debt, day trade financial stocks, and show altruism to developing nations. Until you can do that, haters go SUCK IT
Thank you for spotlighting the Economics Department in your recent essay on grade inflation. I’m sure your readers were as surprised as I to find how easy it would be to shut down the inflationary bubble – but that is the magic of journalism!
I’m pleased that you’ve brought renewed attention to the basement of Gardner Hall. Personally, I’m confident that your essay will do for that venue what “The Da Vinci Code” did for the Louvre. Please warn visitors, though, to carry a cell phone; some students have had trouble finding their way out once inside.
Best wishes.
Patrick Conway
The Minor needs to realize grade inflation here at UNC Economics dept. is not happening. Nada. Zilch.
We earn our grades, and let me tell you:
The Economics major is HARD AS FUCK.
Economic requires equal analytic prowess over both qualitative and quantitative mindsets; don’t berate if you can’t relate!
I’ve literally gotten ZERO sleep trying to derive financial analytical proofs, memorizing stock tickers, solving puzzles, understanding international policies, learning historical and modern models, and writing huge reports that would rival those of any lab.
If you want to make a claim about grade inflation, my god, PLEASE tell me to which econ classes you are referring so that I can TAKE THESE CLASSES – because NOT ONE single economics class have I taken in which I have not had to WORK MY ASS OFF!!!