college professors are as bad if not worse with absolutely zero expectations of compliance to a grading standard or common practice.
Not really true, at least at my university, and I think at most of the good ones. The syllabus is considered to be a contract between the student and the professor. If a professor tries to spring extra assignments not stated on the syllabus, or grade an assignment based on anything other than academic quality, the student can initiate a grievance procedure and will probably win.
Worse yet, the majority of college professors have had little or no credit hours in actual educational practice.
Guilty as charged. However, most of us are deeply passionate about getting our students to understand the material that we care so much about, and we learn from experience what helps students to "get it" and what doesn't. I will admit though that the first several semesters of students I taught did not get the most awesome teaching experience ever.
