<p>I think a keylogger is a really bad idea. Also a bad idea to contact a professor. </p>
<p>However, like others have said, I think it is fine to insist upon seeing past grades before agreeing to pay for the next semester’s expenses. It is reasonable to expect a certain level of performance to agree to continue paying. Better to discuss this with your son sooner rather than later, so that if there were problems last semester, you have some time to address them before school starts again in the fall.</p>
<p>OP, every college student has to meet SAP, satisfactory academic progress. This usually means having a GPA of 2.0 or better. Granted, 2.0 isn’t stellar, but it’s a C, and if the major your student is studying is tough, a C is sometimes “average”. If your child isn’t making SAP, the college/university will deal directly with him, since he is the young adult. He will be put on probation for a semester, and then if no improvement is made, he would be told to leave school. You sent your child to college, but to the college he is an adult. Why not trust the process to work? If you speak to your son about other aspects of life, in a positive conversation, he may just open up about his grades. Maybe they are great, maybe not and he is embarrassed/frustrated. No one intends to do horribly in college, but it can be a tough adjustment. Come at it from a different view, when you and your son are relaxed and having a nice time together. The last thing you want to do is spy on him in dis-trust.
Also, the idea of demanding a certain GPA anywhere above a 2, is to me very unfair. Most kids try, hard. And sometimes courses can be tough with no way out past the “drop date”, so the honorable student who is not a “quitter” sticks it out and doesn’t get the best grade. Why be punished for trying? Isn’t learning about taking risks and trying something new? In our culture, we have become a country full of cheaters trying to get all A’s and 2400’s, but that is very unrealistic and is exactly what drives students to cheat and then get kicked out of school! I went to a tough college, graduated with a 2.98.The Horror! And I went on to get a masters, have had a great career, have a house and all the fixings, and am none the worse for sticking it out in a few courses that were NOT in my major but I really had an interest in! I’m glad I suffered and got C’s in those classes, because despite the low grade, I honestly learned something I never knew before, had never even thought of before, and THAT was the real value of my excellent education!</p>
<p>That is fine for me, I will tell him to reveal his grades or else I will stop sending checks for his tuition and he has the option to decide what he wants. If he doesn’t he can’t live at home with me so he will have to find a job and figure it out with his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend. I’m just tired of having to worry every day about it, when I try to talk to him he is very manipulative and lies to me. He has a thing against authority.</p>
<p>As per me spying, I got the idea from the news articles on the NSA. It seems like they watch everything we do, I don’t see how that is justified when a complete stranger can violate my privacy but if I want to know what my son does I have no “rights”. Society is heading down a slippery slope…</p>
<p>I was reading up on this and there is an interesting article today. From a legal standpoint I have the right to know what my computer is being used for as it is still mine and he is simply borrowing it.</p>
<p>With such a huge invasion of his privacy, don’t be surprised if he stops all or most contact with you as soon as you can’t control him through money.</p>
<p>jetsfan99, why are YOU worrying. Like someone says if he fails, the college will ask him to leave. The only thing you need to worry about, if you’ve committed to paying for college, is that he successfully complete his classes.</p>
<p>I’m with acollegestudent. If my parents used a keylogger on my laptop during college, I would never forgive them for that and I would know there was not enough trust or respect for me to let me have even the most basic privacy.</p>
<p>Don’t try to spy on your child. College kids know their way around computers – he WILL find a keylogger on there and there will be consequences to it. Is catching him looking at porn really worth risking your relationship over?</p>
<p>If this isn’t a TROLLOLOLOLOL I’d be shocked. Reads like a junior high schooler wrote it.</p>
<p>But in the event that it isn’t…you are 100% out of your mind. Demand grades or cut off payment, but don’t keylog your kid. You’re looking at both jail time and a completely severed relationship. But something tells me that you don’t really care about that anyways…</p>
<p>■■■■■ or not, drug addiction and alcohol abuse are real problems for people of every age. There are a lot of unsavory characters that hang out on college campuses and kids have a lot of opportunity to get into trouble. I knew a great guy with a lot of potential who developed a nasty crystal meth problem. His parents had no idea until he was forced to come home and they saw the damage that had been done to him physically ( weight loss, etc.). If your gut instinct says that something is wrong it probably is andyou need to intervene as soon as possible. Bugging the computer is wrong but insisting on seeing his grades is OK. Just be prepared to deal with what you find out in a grown up manner. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated, you might have just one shot.</p>
<p>The fact that you pay for his education and computer does not mean you are permitted to break the law. Your son is an adult and spying on him is against the law no matter how much you paid for the computer or his tuition.</p>
<p>I am a parent. My rule regarding grades is that my son must provide me with proof that he is progressing towards a degree before I will pay for his tuition. No grade report=no money. You can implement the same rule.</p>
<p>As far as worrying about your son’s drug use you can refuse to pay for your child’s tuition if you think he is doing drugs. You don’t have to pay for college. It is not a law. However, you will need to either trust him, or pull his funding. Spying on him is illegal.</p>
<p>Oh brother. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something like this is posted.</p>
<p>If this isn’t a ■■■■■, it is a VERY paranoid and intrusive parent. Sorry…but if I were the kid, I would want to be in college as far away as possible.</p>
<p>You are completely in your rights to ask him to sign a FERPA waiver. You are also completely in your rights to insist on knowing whether he is speaking to the ex-girlfriend, and what his grades are to continue providing financial support. However, you do not have the right to install a keylogger on the computer which he uses on the campus network. The very idea is counterproductive anyway. As soon as he knows you don’t trust him, he will only use that computer to school work, and will use campus computers to communicate with friends. </p>
<p>Since he’s completed at least his first year of college, I’m going to assume he’s legally an adult. Talking to his professors will only make you look like an extreme helicopter parent. Ask him about his grades, and tell him you won’t provide money without them. If you don’t trust what he’s telling you, ask him to log onto his student account and show you. Either he’ll show you, or he won’t, and you can proceed from there. If he gets really angry with your lack of trust, maybe he’ll find a way to produce a website with grades that looks like the real thing, and really submarine you! Of course, if he does that, maybe his grades don’t matter so much, because he has the talent to do so.</p>
<p>lI didn’t even know what a keylogger was- had to google it. Awful. I am starting to hate technology. I particulary hate facebook. TMI. Leave the poor kid alone.</p>
<p>It’s not only a violation of his son’s right to privacy as established by past supreme court rulings, but also likely a violation of Federal and State hacking/network eavesdropping laws and the privacy/networking rights of the college and/or the government if it’s a public institution. </p>
<p>If OP is dumb enough to act on this…he’d be lucky if only the local/state courts sentence him to prison. </p>
<p>There’s also the possibility that in addition to all that he/she may be visited by the Feds as many colleges receive federal funding and have computing networks which enable communications nationally and internationally. All those factors have the potential to snowball into a Federal case.</p>
<p>It also doesn’t seem to register with the OP that once you hook up a computer to an institution’s network…that computer & its owners are now subject to policies/laws related to being connected on that network. </p>
<p>As it’s not the network of the computer owner’(s’) the institution which owns the network has the right to dictate conditions for users to connect their computers on that network such as hardware/software configuration, minimum system requirements, mandating installation of security software, signing agreements to comply with network policies/laws as a condition to connect up, and being subjected to possible sanctions and even prosecution if such policies/laws are violated.</p>
If you include soft drugs, “associates with people who do drugs” describes the majority of 4-yr college students. If you include alcohol. it’s even higher. Some studies have found that nearly half of students in 4-yr colleges binge drink. There are countless opportunities for soft drugs and alcohol while in college, far too much for you to control. You’ll likely have even less control after he graduates and lives on his own. You can’t stop it, but you can instill quality values and help him understand your point of view, so that he makes good decisions on his own. </p>
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I hope this is a ■■■■■ and there is not really a parent on here who wants to use a keylogger on his kid while away at college.</p>
<p>I understand your concerns, OP, but I’m with those who say no spying or talking to teachers. </p>
<p>Absolutely you should make future tuition checks contingent on access to his grades. This means either he gives you the password to his online school records, or he signs a release with the registrar. You can’t police his choices. But you can decide what you will and will not support financially.</p>
for parents to keep track of grades…</p>