The way I understand it as I've been told is lower tier schools tie scholarship numbers to GPA, so they give lower grades to reduce GPA and save scholarship dollars by 2l and 3l.

Also, many "higher ranked" operate on high curves. My school's median was a b+. If you got a B, you were below median.

They could only give 20% of the class a grade of b- or below and anything below a c had to he approved by the dean.

Finally, I imagine it has something to do with employment and bar passage. At Harvard, you're probably going to be fine not studying and still be employed and maybe even pass the bar. At Cooley, if you dont study and aren't knowledgeable, you might end up working at taco bell and will probably never pass the bar.