The New York Times published an article last week about students whose high-grade expectations create discrepancies between them and professors when lower-than-expected grades are returned. The article included findings from a study that said “a third of students surveyed said that they expected Bs just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.”

The article cited that students of our generation feel they have a particular sense of entitlement, which contributes to these findings.

We, as college students in this generation, don’t necessarily disagree.

We’d like to clarify. As older generations have done to us, it is not our intention to make generalizations about all students at Iowa State.

That said, we would like to vocalize a trend we’ve seen among classmates — and apparently, we’re not the only ones to notice.

What comes to mind, for example: the students who whine about a six-page essay in an English class, then talk back to the professors or TAs when their five-page, wide-margined, 12.5-point-font essay is returned with a C.

The worst part may be the students who justify their complaints with the argument that they’re paying for college, so they deserve a good grade. However, we believe that you’re paying for an education, and that money pays your professors to evaluate just how much of an education you received. If they’re good at their job, they won’t award As to students who deserve Cs.

We discussed what we think may cause this sense of entitlement that lingers in our generation. Parental pressure, combined with some parental “babying” may contribute. Perhaps it has something to do with high-school teachers and the manner in which they distribute grades.

The source from which the issue stems aside, one fact remains: College students are adults. No matter how many As you received on high school essays, or whether your parents called you in sick when homework wasn’t completed, college is a different.

We’re only a couple years — some of us only months — from joining the workforce, where bosses aren’t going to be handing out advances to people who just met the bare minimum — did a C job, and think it’s an A.

So again, our intent is not to strike this generalization upon the entire student body.

But it’s embarrassing to the rest of our generation when the handful of these students, oftentimes upperclassmen, create scenes about not receiving grades they don’t deserve.