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Wary of how the film department handled Franco’s star status, an NYU professor claims he lost his job because he gave the actor a D.

A college degree is often seen as a stepping stone to a successful career. But in the film industry, an esteemed piece of paper seldom translates into immediate success. After enrolling in a host of academic programs post stardom, though, James Franco gave the term “professional student” a new meaning.

Over the past few years, the “127 Hours” star divided his time between Hollywood and MFA programs at Columbia University and NYU (in creative writing and filmmaking, respectively) and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in English from Yale University, according to the US Weekly website. Tack on a doctoral program in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston, which Franco is set to begin in fall 2012, and the former James Dean almost looks like the next poster child for the intrinsic value of higher education.

That is, if he can find the time to make it to class. For his MFA at NYU, Franco missed 12 of his 14 “Directing the Actor II” seminars, which landed him with a “D” for the semester. The professor of the course, José Angel Santana, told the New York Post that Franco went on to publicly ridicule him over the bad grade. The film department then got involved, and Santana ended up losing his job. “The school has bent over backwards to create a Franco-friendly environment, that’s for sure,” Santana told the Post. “The university has done everything in its power to curry favor with James Franco.”

In order to get his job back, Santana has filed a suit against NYU in the Manhattan Supreme Court that claims the film department fired him based on a conflict of interest arising from Franco’s star status. Beyond the revenue a big name like Franco usually generates for a university, the suit states that members of the film department have even worked on Franco’s films. Franco allegedly hired one of his professors, Jay Anania, to write and direct “William Vincent,” which starred Franco and was featured at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. And Santana lampooned John Tintori, the department head, for taking a cameo role in a film Franco financed and Anania directed.

“In my opinion, they’ve turned the NYU graduate film degree into swag for James Franco’s purposes, a possession, something you can buy,” Santana told the Post. After graduating, Franco stayed connected to the program and even taught a course last fall on adapting poetry into short films. No mention has been made of Franco’s class attendance as a professor, but NYU did release an initial statement on the suit.

“We have not seen the lawsuit yet, but the claims we are seeing in the media are ridiculous,” a university spokesman said. “Beyond that, it is regrettable and disappointing to see a faculty member – formal or otherwise – discuss any student’s grade for the purpose of personal publicity.”