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Recall that はず can follow

  * a noun followed by の
  * a verb in plain form
  * i adjective
  * na adjective followed by な for the present tense

and considering the following sentence,

> 十年前は小学生だったが、友達の子供はもう大学 **ぐらいのはず** だ。

ぐらい seems to be a noun.

Why do we need の between ぐらい and はず ?
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2016-06-14T08:51:56.827
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question
grammar
Is the word ぐらい a noun? Why do we need の between ぐらい and はず?
According to [this dictionary
entry](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/63287/meaning/m0u/%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89%E3%81%84/),
**くらい as used in your example sentence is a 副助詞 (adverbial particle)**. It can
"attach" to a 名詞 (noun) to form an adverb 副詞. Adverbs tend to have "case by
case" grammar. It can sometimes be spelled/pronounced ぐらい.

* * *

**For your example** , we probably need to look at 大学 as well:

> 大学ぐらいのはずだ

One way to parse this is that ぐらい is a "branch", that is, "parallel" (not
sequential) to の. In other words, の doesn't attach to ぐらい, rather **both ぐらい
and の attach to 大学**. This is not so strange if you think of ぐらい as a
particle, since **stacked/parallel particles occur frequently in Japanese**.
Thus, in this case, ぐらい is largely "outside" the main "parse sequence", once
it attaches to 大学 it is done. Note that if you remove ぐらい, you get 大学のはずだ
which is grammatical.

* * *

**Aside:** くらい vs ぐらい: According to [this
post](http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/2203450.html), usually:  
1) Uninflected words (eg most nouns) use ぐらい. (eg １０分ぐらい, １０歳ぐらい)  
2) あそこど use くらい (eg このくらい, どのくらい)  
3) With inflected words and adverbs ぐらい is common but くらい is also okay.
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answer