It’s not uncommon for parents to advocate for their children, but sometimes they take it a bit too far.

What would you do if a student’s father stormed into your office, insisting you change her grade because he paid cash for her tuition?

Would you cave? Or would you hold firm on your principles?

In the following story, a professor faces this exact situation and sets the record straight for both the student and her father.

Here’s how it all unfolded…

I really pity this young woman.

I was sitting in my office at the University where I teach and had a knock on the door.

One of my second-year students came in, and an older person I found out was her father followed her in.

I had barely finished asking them how I could help when Dad opened up with, “It’s not acceptable that my daughter got such a low score in her last assignment; I want you to change the marks.”

The poor student looked so embarrassed as her dad went on.

The classic: “We’ve paid good money to get on this course, so I expect better marks. I’ve paid cash for this, so she won’t have a student loan to pay off at the end.”

She waited for him to finish before asking her own questions.

I let him continue ranting and eventually got to respond.

I simply asked the student if she had read the feedback I provided on the assignment, she said she had, I asked if she felt it was a fair reflection of the work she submitted and again, she said it did.

I then suggested that she needed to put more effort into revising for the examinations coming up in a few weeks and that, overall, while it was a summative assessment, it was not going to prevent her from passing the end-of-year assessment.

Then, she explained her job to him.

I then told the dad, “I’m paid to provide realistic feedback on her work. The fact that you paid cash for her tuition does not mean she gets good marks without her submitting work that merits good marks.”

We hear this argument so often now in Universities.

I know tuition is expensive, but you don’t pay for the grade you get, you have to work for it.

Simply being wealthy doesn’t mean your kids are entitled to a free pass in education.

Yikes! People like this are never easy to deal with!

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit had to say about this situation.

Apparently, parents like him are more common than you’d think.

Paying for college grades defeats the purpose.

This person is spot on!

This person was enrolled and dealt with entitled students.

The father needs to calm down and realize that money can buy a lot of things, but it sure doesn’t guarantee good grades or hard work.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.