According to data from the campus statistics platform Berkeleytime, the share of students receiving failing grades rose sharply in Spring 2026, with 35.3% of COMPSCI 10 students and 10.6% of COMPSCI 61A students earning F's. Both are technically lower-division introductory courses.
In the previous two spring semesters, 2024 and 2025, fewer than 10% of students in either course received F's.
The electrical engineering and computer sciences department’s grading guidelines state that D and F grades combined should make up about 7% of grades in lower-division courses, including CS 10 and CS 61A.
These figures stand far above the levels recorded over the previous two years. They also drastically exceed the guidelines of Berkeley's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, which aim to keep the share of D and F grades in introductory courses below 7%.
Average grades in both classes plummeted to around 2.3 on a 4.0 scale, equivalent to a C+. In previous semesters, the typical average ranged from 2.8 to 3.3.
