This conceptual paper reframes grade inflation in higher education as a multi level accountability failure spanning faculty, institutions, and the public. We integrate accountability theory with the institutional logics lens to theorise how market logic (students as customers) and managerial logic regimes like student evaluations of teaching and organisational risk management, overwhelm professional logic to distort performance signals embedded in grades. We elaborate three specific accountability chains: faculty, institutional, and public, and develop testable propositions on (i) how high stakes reliance on student evaluations induces lenient grading, (ii) how casualised labour markets and appeals/complaints regimes shift academic behaviour, (iii) how ranking/throughput pressures reshape institutional accountability, and (iv) how inflation erodes employers’ signalling value, professional assurance, and societal trust. We propose a cross level research agenda for accounting scholars, linking grading to reporting, assurance, and audit analogues, and outline governance remedies including post hoc grade adjustment models, departmental benchmarking, and multi measure teaching evaluation.