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Harvard students are national outliers in plenty of ways — but in at least one respect, we’re hardly unique.

Earlier this month, the New York Times published a story suggesting that Harvard students are skipping their classes — and still getting As. The revelation by America’s paper of record came from unearthing a nine-month-old report conducted by the Classroom Social Compact Committee, which diagnosed widespread academic deprioritization at the College.

Diminished focus on academics is real — and a legitimate cause for concern. But behind the headline lies a far broader story: Declining focus on coursework is a national problem.

It’s no news to us that some Harvard students prioritize extracurricular and pre-professional commitments over coursework. Indeed, that’s the very reason we argued in favor of well-purposed rigor in the aftermath of the CSCC report’s release. Still, pundits — and anyone else — concerned with treating the malady of academic deprioritization have to contend with the fact that the disease isn’t endemic to Harvard.

Available evidence suggests grades have steadily risen at universities nationwide for decades. And one study found that, between 1961 and 2003, American college students went from spending an average of 40 hours per week on academic activities to just 27 hours per week.

These trends didn’t come from nowhere — they’re a response to pressures that have only grown more forceful over time.

For many undergraduates today, their four brief years of college have become largely focused on the decades that follow. Competition in the job market for college graduates has forced students to find new ways of distinguishing themselves from other applicants; oftentimes, pre-professional organizations become a means to that end.

At Harvard and peer institutions, academic fellowships introduce similar pressures even for those who are less career-oriented, rewarding students for layering extracurricular achievement on top of shiny academic records.

Try as it might, no college can eliminate these pressures alone. Universities nationwide can consider internal incentives that recenter academics, balanced against the realities of work and life that trouble today's students.

And, despite what the Times’ scrutiny would suggest, universities would do well to take a page out of Harvard’s book on this issue.

Since the CSCC released its report on the relegation of academics at the College, Harvard has initiated several efforts to rectify the issue.

In recent years, Harvard has updated its guidelines for General Education courses to mitigate grade inflation and updated the Student Handbook to penalize chronically absent students, all while maintaining restrictions on simultaneous enrollment for most courses.

When external pressures pull students away from the classroom, better course design can pull them back in. For instance, faculty can institute no-laptop policies, match the length and difficulty of reading assignments to the course, and limit access to lecture recordings outside exceptional circumstances. Purposeful assignments — that engender cognitive stimulation rather than mere busy work — would increase student buy-in to classes without recourse to ChatGPT.

Implemented elsewhere, similar efforts could help restore academics to center stage, nationwide.

After all, an analysis in a recent Crimson op-ed found that Harvard students spend nearly twice as much time on their coursework as the national average.

So while the country debates our diligence, we’ll be plenty busy.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.