[mejin]

That's very generous of you. When my parents got married, my grandparents paid for their honeymoon. Had the resort where they were staying reported to their parents what they did there, they would have been outraged. Would something like this also be accepted in America?

[sulam]

I don't know what he's doing, I know what grades he got a few times a year.

He asked for money. One of the terms for my giving him money was to know whether or not my money is having the desired outcome. If he didn't like that he could get money elsewhere on far worse terms. Welcome to adulthood!

[JackFr]

Of course not, but it's hardly the same.

For the sake of argument, take the university at their word: that they believed there was an unsafe environment fostered in this dorm, and that the students were markedly underperforming their peers. As such the University is selling a defective good to the parents, and they are trying to remediate it.

That sounds quite reasonable to me.

However, are they infantilizing the students and preventing them from growing in maturity and judgement in the process?

Yep, they sure are.

The problem US universities are finding themselves in, is when parents are ponying up small fortunes, they are not interested in preserving 'freedom to fail' which is necessary for growth.

[strathmeyer]

This is a University that would rather someone die than they have to admit they did something wrong. Nobody is giving them the benefit of the doubt.

[op00to]

> As such the University is selling a defective good to the parents

The university is selling a possibly "defective" good to the student. The parents are gifting money to the student to pay for that service.

[sulam]

Actually it's not a gift. If it was a gift, it would exceed the amount of money I can give him and would trigger taxes for him, and I'd need to give him _more_ money to pay those taxes.

I don't know how this works legally, but I do know (because I asked) that this isn't considered a gift according to the IRS.