Sympathy The decline in standards is now a universal phenomenon, and there seems little one can do about it. Certainly here in the UK it is a hotly debated issue. It is an interesting argument but one for which there is little evidence forthcoming, at least that I have seen. The grade inflation in the UK is caused by pressure from the funding organizations. All UK students are currently entitled to free 3rd level education and the universities essentially get a bounty for each head from the Government.
Funding is strictly monotonic decreasing.
Universities suffer financial penalty for failing students, so they often move weak students around various faculties until a course is found that they can pass. Likewise, to proceed to post-graduate research the requirement of the funding bodies is often a first class honours degree. Departments who are worried about being able to get a sufficient number of qualified applicants for post-graduate posts can just bump up the number of 'firsts' that they award to ensure a reasonable supply. My feeling is that 'gold' standards are required which can reliably assess the true quality of students from year to year and institution to institution. Universities should be required to publish the numbers and types of grades awarded so that any large-scale deviance from the expected distribution curve would be noticed by the public and potential employers alike.