[cultureswitch]

This could also be simply due to the Ivy league institution providing the service being bought. In other words, the parents of Timmy might be fed up and stop being sponsors if he gets bad grades.

Of course in rigorous fields of study this is hard to do but if your rich kid is studying art, the grades are almost entirely arbitrary.

[whimsicalism]

No - I mean this is also true for proctored high school exams like the SAT and AP scores. But also - no professor is changing grades based on who your parents are unless they are uber uber uber famous.