Santa Clara University

Juliana was a good student in high school. She wasn't valedictorian, but she got mostly As and Bs. Her parents thought they had to sit on her to get her assignments done, but she thought they worried too much. After all, she did get into the college of her choice and was starting her freshman year at school.

Juliana was looking forward to the independence of the college environment. There was only one hitch: her parents were insisting that she allow them to see her grades. Because she was 18, by law, she was an adult. But by her parents' law, she was either going to make her records accessible or they weren't going to pay for school.

Was it right for them to invade her privacy like this?

Here are some useful resources:

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making 

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Photo by quinn.anya available under Creative Commons License.

When Kayla was making her applications, her family was in good shape financially, but just before she was accepted, she learned her father had been laid off from his job as a software engineer.  In order to send Kayla to her first-choice school, her parents intend to dip into their retirement accounts. 

Should Kayla allow them to do this, or should she go to the less expensive state university, where she was also accepted?

Here are some resources that might be useful:

Balancing kids' college and retirement saving

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making

Pay for College (CollegeBoard) 

Photo by Daniel Moyle available under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License.

Posted by Rebecca Bivona-Guttadauro

$50 Amazon gift certificate to the best student response on this case received by midnight, June 5.

Since he was a little boy, Sam has always been able to count on his father. When Sam was in grade school, his dad went to bat for him if a teacher didn't treat him fairly. In high school, Sam appreciated when his father made sure he got plenty of playing time on the basketball team, and he learned more from his father than from the English teacher when his dad helped him with assignments.

Now, at the end of his freshman year of college, Sam has a real problem. His psychology professor has found a couple of lines in the final paper he just turned in that were copied directly from an article in a professional journal. Sam does not dispute that the lines were from the journal, which he included in his bibliography, but he explains to the teacher that he simply forgot to put quotations around them and cite them in this one instance. The teacher is not impressed by his explanation, and has given him a failing grade on this very important assignment.

Sam calls his dad to complain about the situation, and his father is indignant that the professor is being so "rigid." He offers to call the department chair and protest Sam's grade. Should Sam involve his father in this matter?

Here are some resources that may be helpful:

Here are some resources that may help:

Helicopter Parents (The Tufts Daily)

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making