What if there were no grades?

Abstract The role of grades in shaping students’ futures has intensified in ‘metric societies’ where human lives are increasingly rendered into numbers, scores, metrics, and rankings. It is almost impossible to imagine university education without grades, and indeed, gradeless programs remain at the margins of higher education. This study asks university students to imagine the unimaginable: what if there were no grades? Through an innovative approach of ‘removal as a method’, this study theorises grades as performative quantification practices. The participants are university students from Finland and Hong Kong, with Finland representing a relatively low-stakes context for grades and Hong Kong representing a highly competitive academic environment. Based on qualitative survey responses ( n Finland = 339 and n Hong Kong = 266) and narrative interview material ( n Finland = 54 and n Hong Kong = 53), this study suggests two metaphors for unpacking student perceptions of gradelessness. First, the participants saw grading as an engine that drives student learning, motivation, emotions, and well-being. This view gives agency to grades themselves as powerful actants influencing students’ psychological processes. Second, students perceived grades as cogs in the machine in societies driven by measurement and competition. According to this approach, grades were merely symptoms of broader economic issues, being less influential in their own right. Removing this ‘engine’ or ‘cog’ was naturally described to cause issues but also to promote freedom, resistance, and love towards learning. Finally, it is discussed how both metaphors naturalise grades as inevitable, accustomed, and permanent parts of higher education.