<p>Although “full-freighter entitlement” is perhaps as old as tuition itself, how I understand full-freighter entitlement, especially at private schools, is that a person would get a sense of entitlement due to that student paying full freight at a given school and utilize the full-freighter leverage (which IMO is greater the smaller the school gets) to obtain, say, better grades or extra credit.</p>
<p>Then again, the older occurences of full-freighter entitlement are perhaps poorly documented since ancient documentation about that attitude might be scarcer.</p>
<p>Have you seen that entitlement when you were yourselves in college?</p>
<p>Huh? I paid full freight for both my daughters’ private college educations (still doing so for D2), and I never heard of the concept of “full-freighter entitlement.” I certainly never felt it. I figured once you were admitted and you enrolled you were entitled to exactly the same benefits and considerations regardless of whether you were full-freight, full-ride finaid, or somewhere in between. And if paying full freight was supposed to get my daughters “better grades or extra credit” then I’ve been cheated. Because I sure haven’t seen any sign of that.</p>
<p>If “full-freighter entitlement” exists I’ve been completely oblivious to it.</p>
<p>Parent of a recent grad full pay at a private school. I have never heard of this. I/my child would not have dreamed of using this for better grades (or anything else) if indeed it actually exists.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard of this in college, however, when our kids were in private elementary schools a lot of the parents felt that because they paid tuition they should have more say in what went on in the school. Not that parents shouldn’t be involved but more of the “rules shouldn’t apply to them” type attitude. One parent insisted on picking their child up by a certain door after the principal asked parents not to do so. There were 12 other door they could use but this one was the pick up door for the kindergarten so they wanted to keep it as congestion free as possible. This student could have walked to the end of a pretty short hallway to get to another door but no, THAT was THE door he wanted. Stuff like that exists in private schools (and in public).</p>
<p>Is this for college or for private high school? I have never heard of such a thing in college! I am not sure that college instuctors are even aware of their students finances with regard to tuition etc…! If they are it is news to me!</p>
<p>In private high schools I have heard of and experienced parents who are large donors. A few of the tacky types like to try to throw their weight around but I am not sure how much or how far that gets them other than looking…tacky!</p>
<p>If you are going to pay the full cost of tuition no matter what that full cost is… you will have a wider choice for your college education. If that is entitlement, then that’s true of any purchase or any commodity. If you have a budget, generally you have to eliminate some choices. If you are the seller then you might be able to pick and chose who you sell to. As an example a seller might be able to sell a house to someone who is paying cash over someone who is offering the same amount of money but has contingencies on the exchange. Perhaps that is entitlement also. I think you ask very broad questions as I’ve seen some other posts focusing on a word or an aspect, but you might be getting “hung up” on words without thinking about the bigger picture. Entitlement is privilege or right to an economic benefit and really no more or no less.</p>
<p>Of course, many CCers attend some of the better schools (elite or not) so that might account for why full-freighter entitlement seemed so unfamiliar to them. I knew that some non-elite schools had students who used the tenure-track status of professors (but that could, of course, only be used on TT-profs that didn’t have tenure yet) as leverage to get either extra credit or better grades. </p>
<p>One of my instructors, back in CEGEP, turned down some tenure-track jobs in undisclosed American colleges not because of poor pay, or even because the school was too research-heavy for that instructor, but because the instructor didn’t want to deal with full-freighters that used their full freight bursary status as leverage to coerce profs to raise their grades.</p>
<p>No. There is no such thing as “full-freighter leverage.” There is an information wall between the bursar’s office and academics. Professors have no idea which students are full-pay and which are not. The idea that a full-pay student would get more consideration, say, for a grade complaint over a student on financial aid is ludicrous. Professors have no incentive to treat students differently on the basis of the sticker price each one pays. Over the years, I’ve actually gotten more grade-change pleas from students on scholarships who need a certain GPA to retain their money. I’ve never had students or parents claim entitlement to higher grades or better opportunity on the basis of the fact that they pay full freight.</p>
<p>Typically, the worse the school, the worse the FA. So not only have I never heard of this, but it doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>You also said that Dartmouth’s decision not to grant credit for AP scores was clearly a “money grab.” </p>
<p>Frankly, I think you are a bit too inclined to see money as a motivating factor in these situations.</p>
<p>There certainly ARE situations where profs are pressured to give certain students better grades, but I think that is more likely to happen with football or basketball players than people whose families are paying full tuition.</p>
<p>Having adjuncted in 4 different colleges/universities, I’ve never seen anything of the sort. If a student were to come to me and demand a higher grade because they were full pay, I would laugh. If they went to the dean or the department chair and demanded a higher grade because they were full pay they would be laughed at there also. </p>
<p>The ONLY time I have had anyone ask for “special consideration” for a student was for one of the athletes who happened to be on the farm team for the New York Jets, and that came from the football coach.</p>
<p>How, exactly, would a student go about “using this leverage” anyways?</p>
<p>Given the number of articles we get posted on here from higher ed, etc… I KNOW this is not something that is going on. We’d have heard about it by now, from the professors themselves. Publish or perish, as they say. ;)</p>
<p>Sheesh. </p>
<p>We are full pay and I cannot even imagine my children doing any of the things you’ve listed. I’ve honestly never heard of this.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard of this either and have a hard time believing it exists. </p>
<p>There was a thread on CC where a student was complaining about his/her room assignment, saying that since he/she was paying full freight they should have a preference in room draws. As I remember it a number of posters responded saying that this stance was really offensive.</p>
<p>A college does have to look after itself financially, even a subprime one. Perhaps it would work better at a college where just one full-freighter’s tuition can make a significant difference in that college’s finances.</p>
<p>As far as using the tenure-track status of a professor that doesn’t have tenure yet as leverage to raise grades, I guess, it depends on how much weight student reviews have in tenure decisions. At schools that are research-heavy, it may not matter very much but there are situations where student reviews are the difference-maker.</p>