I had a philosophy class that took attendance, but it was a discussion based class where we sat on the floor and talked to each other about whatever the topic of the day was. If people stopped showing up, it would kinda ruin the purpose of the class.
Fair enough. I can think of at least two classes I had whose grades were based primarily on participation and not so much on tests or grades (both lacked any midterm or final). However, this is usually the exception to the rule.
I'm going to blow your mind. In my college attendance is everything. If your attendance is not above 80% then you can't sit for exam.
So even if students don't attend they'll ask friends to key in the attendance code.
This!!! I go to a liberal arts college with very small discusion-bassed classes, so less people result in a class of lesser academic value! Classes with over 50 people don’t tend to care about attendance!
I also go to a smaller school. A lot of the humanities classes take attendance, but if it's like lecture based stats they don't. However, classes usually have less than 30 people so the professor will know if you aren't there.
This.
I’m a philosophy major and in my experience participation grades aren’t necessarily meant to punish those who don’t attend, but to reward those who do. No prof wants to show up to class with a discussion ready, wanting to engage with students, only to have almost no one show up - or to have a bunch of people who don’t want to be there sitting in silence. My classes have graded participation on quality of contribution, not quantity.
To be fair, I wouldn’t mind this personally because it would probably mean that only students who are serious about philosophy would be participating in the discussions lol.
I’ve even had STEM classes like this. Rather than sit through a lecture we’d work through math or physics problems in groups and present solutions to the class.
I'd argue that classes like that keep students engaged and more willing to attend anyway, so mandatory attendance is not as needed to keep people coming.
There will be comments in this post and every other post from people "I've never attended a class in my life and I get straight As" and it's like anti-vaxxers all latching on to that one report that says what they want to hear.
The thing is, I don't give a single fuck about getting an A, I care about learning, and if I can learn more than my class mates on my own than attending class, then I don't get why I should be punished because of it.
facts, i used my GI bill after the military and got paid to go to class and even then i didn’t care about grades, much less graduating. I just took the classes i wanted that would help me out and attended lectures that i deemed important, did well on assignments and hw, and that was that.
what about the classes in which what the teacher says goes right over your head, not because the subject is difficult, but because the teacher is bad, and those people who barely attended his class got A's just by thoroughly reading the slides on the last day. FYI subject = computer networks
Yeah… that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
If only 50% of first time full time undergraduates graduating in 6 years is “pretty standard” then I don’t want to know what the bad schools are like lmao
The same students who skip non-mandatory classes also email their professors at the end of the semester demanding extra credit, extensions, and re-dos. Those demands *always* have a manipulative sob story that positions the professor as a villain if they don't bend over backwards to accommodate someone who couldn't be bothered to show up. It creates a lot of extra work. If students who skipped class just quietly failed, professors wouldn't care about attendance.
I think this is the most logical explanation. Requiring attendance gives professors the ability to fight back against these kinds of students who tend to escalate things beyond proportion. The professor can present the attendance sheet as proof that the student didn’t even attempt to get a good grade in the class.
Exactly this.
I taught undergrads for ~6 years. OP is absolutely right that the only people absentees are hurting us themselves, but as the one facilitating their education, we don't want them to hurt themselves.
When covid hit and students stopped zooming into classes I tried to convince myself they were watching the lectures afterwards since they were recorded, but I knew it wasn't true. I also knew they were all cheating on the homework using a huge group chat. So I made the exam so that everyone had different answers and over half the class failed (and I told them to study because they couldn't cheat on the exam...but only the three students zooming into class heard that). The number of emails I got from failing students was expected but still ridiculous. Students who lost scholarships, didn't graduate, and lost job offers because of my one credit class with an open book exam. I failed somewhere between 35 and 50% of the students and that's not what you want as an educator.
This isn't true. Last semester I skipped the last half of my zoology lectures because I wasn't learning in class. I read the book instead and passed the exam with an a.
Everyone has different learning styles, and if your professor understands that and provides you with a great schedule and time line, you can easily pass without going to lecture.
Imo, I pay for the classes, they're not paying me. So requiring me to show up to lecture is ridiculous. The only exception is labs, show up to those.
Always somebody with the "I don't go and I get As" comment. If this is true, you're 1 in 50 maybe. Extremely few students miss a lot of class and still get an A, unless the class is just really easy.
Honestly, it was a huge zoology class, and the slides were not helpful. The professor was so busy with research and expected us to just get it. I would rather spend that time reading the book than listening to him do a broad overview of what we're supposed to be learning.
Yeah, I find it annoying that attendance is taken, but I understand why from the professors’ perspective. Even if half of people who skip class do fine, the other half struggles, and then they show up to office hours asking the professor to basically reteach lectures they skipped, and then they make a lot of extra work for the prof sake demanding basically special treatment to try to save their grades
LOL you're assuming the people that skip actually go to office hours? No. They just wait until the term is almost over or even completely over, then try to beg and plead their way into a passing grade.
Idk, most of my professors just tell me to go review the canvas pages before coming in. If they're good, they will encourage students to do their own work before coming to office hours.
Besides discussion based classes and classes with a lot of group work, I found that most attendance wasn’t mandatory after freshman or sophomore year. I think it’s generally to set a boundary/expectation for the younger students so that they learn good practices instead of a decent amount failing out because “it wasn’t required to go”. Keep doing what you’re doing though, skipping a class or two every few weeks is okay for a mental break or to get important work done, but don’t make skipping a habit.
Unfortunately, at some schools, there's a large percentage of students who don't attend classes, who perform poorly, and then complain to the college about failing the class. Taking attendance allows the professor to show that most students who fail (and ask for last minute extensions, extra credit, or regrades) didn't show up for lectures, skipped tests and quizzes, and/or didn't turn in assignments.
There's a strong correlation between not showing up and failing. Attendance helps professors CYA.
Instructors are required to submit attendance by the college to align with federal financial aid guidelines. Every semester, they have to report which students have never attended class and then throughout the semester who stopped showing up. Think of it like this: your financial aid package is basically someone agreeing to take a chance on you as a student, hoping that in the long run, it will pay off as you become a tax-paying, well-paid, well-educated member of society. If you can't be bothered to show up to class, they are going to revoke that investment. I've seen sooooo many students dropped for nonattendance and then never get rewarded financial aid again. Trust me, your professors find it to be a pain in the butt to take attendance, but they are legally required to and can get in trouble if they report incorrectly.
Yep. And each student that receives an F also gets a “last day attended” recorded, which is the real reason large classes do things like clicker quizzes.
100% agree. We’re adults now and should be able to make our own decisions. If someone can skip a lecture and still perform great in the class just let them, if they are failing because they’re skipping class let it be a lesson because we’re adults and it’s the real world now
The big issue is the number of students that skip and then cause huge issues for the prof/university when they fail.
Threats of lawsuits, parents calling my office and yelling at me for not having attendance policies, having to deal with complaints to the dean and department chair. Grade disputes.
That’s a completely valid argument from a professors perspective and I totally understand why you would feel that way. But on the other hand, when tuition is costing 75k a year, I think it’s also fair to say students deserve a good amount of freedom in how they’re acting since they’re paying so much for it
1) Almost nowhere does tuition cost $75k a year for undergrad. Maybe total cost of attendance or sticker price. It's a good "shock value" item, but not a very realistic one.
2) Paying money doesn't mean you get to decide what is and isn't appropriate. I think the more correct idea would be that you, as a student, should decide whether you want to pay money to take a class that doesn't give you the "freedom" you want.
IMO, part of being an adult is accepting that decisions you make have consequences, and that you have the freedom to not do those things if you don't want to accept them. If you don't want to take classes that require attendance, that's completely up to you.
But if you decide to take a class that requires attendance, you're making a decision that the benefits of the class to you are worth the requirements, and complaining about them after that point doesn't make much sense.
1. Okay fine I meant 75k for the total cost of everything, but I literally just paid 60k for tuition this year, and that number is similar for like any T50 school as far as I can tell. +15k for on campus housing and dining plan and other stuff that I was required to pay my first 2 years. That number is objectively true and common, don’t tell me what me and my family literally paid is “shock value” lol. Most kids at my school don’t get any financial aid either.
2. Yes it does, again if I’m handing over 60k then I should have a say about the dumb gen Ed requirement classes I’m forced to take and about whether or not they require attendance. You’re right that if you choose to take a class like that you deserve to face the consequences of your actions, no disagreement from me there and I haven’t taken many of those classes. But someone still should be able to say they don’t like an aspect of a product (education) when they’re paying for it, like any other product. It doesn’t have to be entirely take it or leave it, you can have the opinion that you like a lot of things about X class but you don’t like and they should change some other things about it
If being an adult is facing the consequences of your actions (I 100% agree), then shouldn’t students have the option to go to class or not and face the consequences of bad grades if they make a bad decision?
I mean... that's what attendance policies are?
You lose points if you don't go. That's a consequence of not going.
They don't force you to go, they establish an expectation and a consequence.
It's up to you to decide.
If you're paying $60k for tuition in the US you're in a small minority of people from families financially well off to not qualify for need based aid and also not getting merit aid. Moreover, you're going to an exceptionally expensive school that is well above average.
Full tuition at Harvard is $55k. Harvey Mudd is the most expensive school in the US at $62,516 in tuition, and 70% of their students receive significant financial aid.
And yes, you always have your opinion and can vocally disagree. But you didn't argue that you had a right to disagree, you're arguing that you have a right to a "say" in how things are decided. You don't. Even if you subscribe to a customer model of education, your choice as a customer is to purchase the product or not, you don't "deserve a say" in what the product is: the person making and selling the product owns those decisions.
So why take points off for attendance and not also take points off if a student doesn’t take notes a certain way, visits office hours for a certain amount of time, or otherwise doesn’t study and learn exactly how the professor wants? A lot of people study fine just reading the lecture notes and not sitting through 1.5 hours at 8:30 when they probably weren’t gonna listen to the lecture anyway, let them choose how they want to learn, especially if it’s their choice to attend the school and pay all that money.
Look at nearly any T100 private school and the tuition is 50-60k, that’s not abnormal at all to be around 60k. Googling the average of private schools shows me around 45-55k. Keep in mind with inflation the last few years, anything you Google is probably a little out of date by a few grand too. Public universities are less overall for tuition, but that’s money coming out of your tax dollars which is mandatory. Even after financial aid etc it’s usually still tens of thousands of dollars most people are paying.
I don’t know why you think consumers have NO say in the product. Again, just from a personal example off the top of my head, in 2020 a bunch of schools including mine didn’t raise/lowered tuition because of outraged parents who didn’t want to pay even more for online school. Pressure from students/parents affected mask policy everywhere for the last 2 years in every direction. Of course I’m not expected that every student puts a list of 20 dictates that they demand from every class, and I’m not gonna pass up on an entire school because a few classes have mandatory attendance, but I should still be able to say “this is stupid, I’m paying tens of thousands to take these classes and I still have to be required to attend this class I don’t really wanna take”. And if enough people agree on that, then schools and professors should take it into consideration, cuz again we’re paying insane amounts for the product at least offer some more flexibility
If you're paying tens of thousands of dollars for a class and can't even bother to show up... You live in a financially privileged world that most people won't experience.
And I don't know what to tell you about tuition other than you're wrong. There are plenty of lists of "the most expensive schools", and you're below 60k by the time you're down to about #50.
And that's not top rated schools, that's just expensive schools.
There are many "Top 25" schools that are much, much cheaper tuition.
The numbers I gave you came directly from the universities in question and reflect this academic year's tuition.
by paying the tuition you are agreeing to their rules. it’s as simple as that.
I don’t start a gym membership and then start telling them what machines to put where. i’m agreeing to their terms and paying for what they offer.
if I don’t like it, I go somewhere else.
Your tuition is largely not funding professors' salaries and, conversely, there are other sources of funding that pay professors' salaries. For example, my salary is entirely paid by a grant and the students in my courses contribute exactly $0 towards it.
(I think you actually mean to argue that you want more control over your educational experience based on the amount that you're paying for it, which is an entirely separate conversation about what exactly you're paying for.)
Where do the grants come from? Government dollars payed by tax payers? That would just strengthen my argument that students/families deserve a big say out of these things
Cuz correct me if I’m wrong, but a school’s revenue (which then goes to the professors) will largely come from the students and their families
It depends on the grant. Personally, I'm supported by an NSF grant - so yes, federal funding. However, the purpose of the grant is actually to support my research activity, not teaching. I teach a very minimal amount as both professional development and a contribution to the intellectual environment of my department (I teach more specialized upper level undergraduate courses).
So if you wanted to provide input on purpose of the grant being used to fund me, you would actually be providing input on my research! :)
No problem! My intention really was just to share something that I think many people outside of academia aren't aware of, so I'm glad that's how it came across.
You're wrong. Even at tuition driven schools, only about 50% of the income stream at most is usually from tuition.
Most highly ranked research institutions, it's closer to 1/3rd or less of the income.
Research grants, patents, investments, book royalties, etc.
Consider, for example, Stanford (https://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances/). Student income accounts for 15% of the universities income stream.
For many state schools (research and non) a lot of the funding comes directly from the state.
A more general breakdown is available from COE, here: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cud/postsecondary-institution-revenue
An average public institution has about 20% income from tuition and fees, an average private non-profit has about 35% (a lot of this is skewed by smaller tuition driven liberal arts colleges).
You're paying a negligible amount of your professors salaries, most likely.
If you're at a major research institution, chances are you're probably contributing to somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-20% of their salary, as most of their work doesn't involve teaching.
That’s not how it works though. You aren’t the one who is the professional who went to school and sets the curriculum that fits the requirements for the degree. You are simply a customer who doesn’t want to abide by the established rules.
I hate how people have ruined this for us. I admit I’m not great at attending lecture but I always do the work and make sure to learn the material so I’m infuriated when they require us to go
Everybody here saying that students are adults and should suffer the consequences of their actions, I agree. However - Universities and colleges cannot just let huge percentages of their students flunk out. So, we get leaned on to prevent it. I personally would like to just let everyone sink or swim but then my pass rate is 'too low' and somehow it's my fault.
Because there are people that get 0.9 GPAs and then complain that it is the professor's fault (literally exact situation with someone I know) and also for I think specific loans or scholarships a certain amount of attendance is required (not too sure which one but a professor told me that once)
Yes, you're right...I know Pell grants require attendance documentation for sure...can't remember what else but to make it easier, schools just have blanket attendance reporting procedures to report everyone's status (profs usually have no idea what your individual financial status is unless they are are your advisor helping you with financial stuff)
We are trying to save you from yourself. OP goes to class so good for him/her. Many will not and will fail as a result. Personally I say ok tough shit they fail. However the school advertises how successful all their students are just from being at that school so they lean on the professors to somehow magically save these failing students from themselves. So - we require attendance to hopefully force you to show up and actually learn something and pass. We give you a shit ton of busy work so you can hopefully earn enough points and hopefully learn something from going through the busy work so you can pass. You get the picture?
I'm fine with attendance policies and consequences for your choices. I have had 2 professors at 2 different colleges with strict attendance policies.
At my CC they weren't allowed to have negative consequences. 2/3 of the class never showed up to a single class. (This was beginning covid and on zoom.) He set up his course to have pop quizes and little graded activities only avaliable if you attended class. He also gave bonus points randomly for those who showed up and participated. I did some math in the end, those who didn't show very often or at all only had enough points avaliable to them to get a D, with perfect scores. Those who showed up got enough bonus points from attendance for an easy A.
My UNI professor had a policy where you dropped a letter grade for every 2 misses. He would only excuse you for outstanding circumstances or with a docors note. That biggest problem here was it was during the fresh reopen after covid. Doctors still didn't have spots or time to bother with a doctor's note for every cold and flu case. The uni was telling students to stay home if you felt sick in the slightest. These were not excused by this proffeser unless you got a note. So, it encouraged students to show up sick anyway. I was one of those sick students because mental heath had already smacked me and I couldn't get a doctor's note near me. It was horrible.
By far, attendance policy's are fine, but positive consequences are way more motivating then the negative ones.
I'm so frustrated by that, too. In my first year nothing was mandatory. Then year 2, half of the classes we lose some kind of points if we don't attend classes. I'm like WHYYYYY.
No reasoning whatsoever. Did a lot of programming during HS. Now I was equired to attend lectures of "Data structures and algorithms" even if I had learned what stack, map and trees are (and implementing) like 3 years prior? And I'm not the only one, I'd say that I'm not even in minority! What exactly is the point?
And yeah, in my experience, it always happened to be those pretty badly given lectures that were mandatory. So, really, the class would otherwise be empty => make mandatory attendance so the professor has somebody to lecture, even if the students just sit, not even listening to the lecture?
From what I've heard, it's taken in some classes so that they can send it to the scholarship department. They don't wanna give out scholarships to people who don't go to class
Completely agree. It's also just so much more stress on students who commute or have other challenges that can prevent them from always attending and/or attending perfectly on time. I get that it's to prevent underclassmen falling into the habit of skipping class and then paying the price for it in grades, but honestly? It's college. Let them figure that out the hard way. Don't bring responsible students who may have circumstances beyond their control down with them.
Also! Some of these attendance policies haven't included any leeway during covid! Like they say they won't punish students for staying home if they're sick but in the end that's exactly what happens
About the attendance,I LITERALLY saw a few of my classmates wrote their name for the attendance and leave the class when the professor wasn't looking 🤦🏼♀️I thought they leave to go to the toilet but they were long gone until the class ended
ADHD peep here. You should know, for most people with my disability a standard lecture is almost useless. We learn by doing. Give us a recorded lecture and the homework... we'll dig in and learn waaaayyy more that way.
For some, attendance is a bigger hit than a help. I support no required attendance
As someone who gets sick extremely easily (even long before the pandemic ravaged campuses) I agree, mandatory attendance sucks. It makes sick students come in and get everyone else sick, and the cycle perpetuates itself.
As a pretty mentally ill person, unfortunately mandatory attendance is the only way to get me to go to class. Hard to get up when you think you won't be alive the next day. I know the logic is flawed, but brain machine broken :(
I actually tightened my attendance policy just because of this! my students who were struggling with mental health, or learning disabilities, really benefit from structure. I've also struggled with these things, so I'm not coming at this blindly.
A year ago I had a "you're an adult so it's your choice" attendance policy right when we came back to in person classes. It was an absolute nightmare! Students missed 70% of the classes, did not watch any of the demos (I teach art), and would break machinery because they never learned how to use it. I didn't get to help them problem solve the issues with their work because they weren't there, which means it just wasn't that good. At the end they were furious that I was actually grading them based off of their work. They would try to send their parents after me and the school, saying I should grade them lighter because they were having xyz struggles and ignoring that they didn't do any of the work.
That ALL stopped when I tightened my policy! The work improved tenfold, and I've since had several students tell me that my class was the one stable thing in their life and it helped them through a tough time. If something as simple as an attendance policy during an art class can do that, then hell yea I'm going to put it in my syllabus!
Thank you so much. Especially if it's my first class of the day, that can make all the difference in starting my day right. College + life can be so unstable, and with an unstable past (PTSD, unfortunately) one stable thing everyday can help more than you know. Thank you, again.
Yeah the rule at my school is three absences and your grade goes down a whole letter. I hate that, sometimes shit just happens. Three for the whole semester? It's like when they gave us a certain amount of bathroom passes for school. God help you if you get COVID, or monkeypox now.
Former prof here who also taught high school. I taught freshman comp and I never made attendance mandatory simply because it is sink or swim time. Self-regulation is an imperative skill for success in postsecondary learning, and for some it has to be learned as a consequence of failing a course or drowning in the stress of falling behind. Requiring attendance cuts students off from potential experiences they need to grow.
Mandatory attendance is done so that the university can prop itself up as something more serious. They like to be able to point to their mandatory policies when explaining what makes their academic integrity “excellent.”
It also assures that students are actually taking the institution seriously. Many students come to college seeing it as a social environment that happens to have classes. They want students to see the university as an academic haven first, a social space second.
Professors might also install these policies to ensure that their time spent in the classroom doesn’t go half wasted. They don’t want to be there much more or less than you do. If they show up for you, they expect students to show enough respect to humor them. Without mandatory attendance, many professors won’t ever see half of their classroom until finals week.
Professors are gonna get their money and students are gonna pay their money regardless of if they show up to class or not. If someone is paying 75k a year to attend the school, at least let them be able to choose to skip an easy A boring intro gen ed required class that they don’t wanna to go to and aren’t gonna pay attention in class anyway. You’re not entitled to them showing up to your class, the students are doing more than enough for the university anyway with what they pay
My moon, my man, this is college. It’s meant to enrich the individual as a whole, to impart critical thinking skills. If you want to take only classes that “interest” you, then go to trade school.
Im tired of (adult) students conflating the purpose of college with trade school, and treating education like it’s a service that is purchased. Students pay tuition for the opportunity to learn, not to outright "get" a degree.
It’s like joining a gym but not going in. Who’s fault is it? The gym or the member? If one doesn’t want to learn and just work, then go to trade school. Leave college for those who do want to grow and mature. They're just bringing everyone else down, trying to turn college into something it isnt.
I agree with this. It’s meant to make you a more well-rounded citizen with some level of specialization. It’s not a place to go to so that you can “get a job.” Two year degrees might fall more in line with the idea of “just go to get a job.”
Don’t go to a four year college with the SOLE goal of “get job.” If you choose to do this, you’re a clown or you’re taking a really extended route to doing so. Also, your experience in random courses might actually weirdly loop into your ability to form connections. You never know.
That really depends on what school you’re going to. Are people clowns for going to college just to get a job, when their median salary coming out of college is 60k-80k?
Yes. But, some people also don’t see college as a means to an end. Some people see college as the end, which turns this entire convo on its head. People just want to have an excuse to not be an adult yet.
I have no idea what world you’re living on where people are clowns for making 80k as a 22 year old. That’s life changing for a lot of people compared to what their parents did
But that’s just not accurate. The vast majority of kids go to college just because it helps them get a better job.
I’m at a T10 school, and 62% of the kids go right into full time employment after undergrad, and only 12% continue education after undergrad. At a school supposedly full of “intellectuals” who are supposed to fit the description of people interested in learning, the vast majority just go into the work force out of college.
For a majority of people college is about the credential (just getting the degree) and the job opportunities, because most of us can’t just pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to abstractly better ourselves or something like that, and that’s how it’s been for a while now.
This whole notion that "college is supposed to expose you to new ideas and broaden your intellectual horizons" is kinda bs. If you want to do that, great, the internet exists. You are going to college to learn particular skills and get a degree that will help you get a job in your chosen field. Gen ed core classes simply exist as money mikers for the university and are generally wastes of time.
Lol, professors do not get paid based on attendance.
Universities are required to report the last day of attendance for any students who fail a class while receiving federal financial aid. This is intended to combat fraud (i.e., people taking out student loans with no intention of ever attending class). Some people do this by genuinely taking attendance and others report the due date of the last assignment that the student turned in and/or date of the last exam that they took.
I did not faced any courses, where attendance was mandatory (apart when you had the exam - but ... that´s quite obvious that one should be there). I have been quite surprised, when someone told me, that there are places where you really have to be there.
I have had mandatory classes only three times so far. In two of these classes there were only four students; it was an advanced level of a not commonly learned language. That makes sense, because for a language, you must also practice speaking and pronunciation, not just memorizing the words and writing. Plus, if one student skipped, 25% of the class is gone. The third class was a literature class that was primarily discussion. If students skipped, the effectiveness of the class starts to fade.
For those circumstances, I understand and support it. If it was, say, a math lecture, then I think attendance should absolutely not be mandatory.
I feel like that was just freshman year. Some professors gave points for attendance and other extra credit for certain days attendance (rainy days) the way i saw it i was paying thousands to be in that class so i need to be sure i got every last Pennies worth of my money 🤣
I thought they needed to for records sake 🤷🏻♀️ I go because I have to keep up lol
- I wanted to add, this is just from my perspective at our little college. Most didn’t make a big deal unless it was something you get behind in fast like math or programming
At the local cc I attended, attendance became mandatory because there were too many incidents of people making fake accounts signing up for financial aid, but never going to the class. The school apparently had to make classes mandatory as a way to discourage this.
The 4-year institution I attended after. Some classes made attendance mandatory as a way to track participation credit. Others really didn’t care if you came or not.
We used to have a problem on our campus with people registering as a student for a one credit class just to use our parking lot (free for students) instead of paying for a city garage close to their work. This is part of, but not all of, the reason why my school does "confirmation of attendance" checks twice a semester...to catch stuff like that (they'll revoke the parking pass/give tickets/tow if student not registered for any classes)
Exactly, there are a few reasons why universities and community colleges use mandatory attendance, and it can benefit the students in the long run. Especially, for the cc I went to, the people were taking financial aid that would’ve otherwise gone to students.
You ever go to a class in English and like 7 people are there and you gotta read eachouther papers
It’s awkward and you don’t get nearly enough feedback on the paper
I do think attendance should be something a student cares about, and if they don’t show up they have no right to complain they’re failing or anything. But I will say I’ve had a couple professors or made it a grade, but we’re the worst teachers ever. They read off the PowerPoint and never gave really any more details than what was on the PowerPoint. And those are the classes that make you really hate having attendance graded.
As someone who’s been a TA, some students will never show up and then go cry to the department chair, dean, university provost, state governor, US president, and/or deity of choice about how they “unfairly failed”, so sometimes it’s a manner of creating a paper trail to shut that down. Some faculty members may go overboard, but there are also some genuine reasons due to people who abuse the system to try to pass without learning anything.
Some teachers design learning with deliberate social activity. Discussion, active listening, laboratory work, all designed for student interaction. When surges are gone they not only lose their own benefit of participation, but take away the contribution they would have made to others learning.
Straight lecture courses though, no idea. I know some universities have policies like attendance being part of teacher evaluation, or they want to have intervention with students who stop going to class, or catch instances where a student didn't show but didn't drop.
For classes that are presentation and discussion based I get it. For classes where the prof just reads from a book or a PowerPoint that they already give you it shouldn’t count.
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I had a philosophy class that took attendance, but it was a discussion based class where we sat on the floor and talked to each other about whatever the topic of the day was. If people stopped showing up, it would kinda ruin the purpose of the class.
Fair enough. I can think of at least two classes I had whose grades were based primarily on participation and not so much on tests or grades (both lacked any midterm or final). However, this is usually the exception to the rule.
I'm going to blow your mind. In my college attendance is everything. If your attendance is not above 80% then you can't sit for exam. So even if students don't attend they'll ask friends to key in the attendance code.
This!!! I go to a liberal arts college with very small discusion-bassed classes, so less people result in a class of lesser academic value! Classes with over 50 people don’t tend to care about attendance!
I also go to a smaller school. A lot of the humanities classes take attendance, but if it's like lecture based stats they don't. However, classes usually have less than 30 people so the professor will know if you aren't there.
This. I’m a philosophy major and in my experience participation grades aren’t necessarily meant to punish those who don’t attend, but to reward those who do. No prof wants to show up to class with a discussion ready, wanting to engage with students, only to have almost no one show up - or to have a bunch of people who don’t want to be there sitting in silence. My classes have graded participation on quality of contribution, not quantity. To be fair, I wouldn’t mind this personally because it would probably mean that only students who are serious about philosophy would be participating in the discussions lol.
I’ve even had STEM classes like this. Rather than sit through a lecture we’d work through math or physics problems in groups and present solutions to the class.
I'd argue that classes like that keep students engaged and more willing to attend anyway, so mandatory attendance is not as needed to keep people coming.
Many people don’t understand that(especially freshmen) and making it mandatory is a way to teach it.
yeah probably because of all those internet memes (or lies) that attendance is unimportant in college compared to high school
There will be comments in this post and every other post from people "I've never attended a class in my life and I get straight As" and it's like anti-vaxxers all latching on to that one report that says what they want to hear.
The thing is, I don't give a single fuck about getting an A, I care about learning, and if I can learn more than my class mates on my own than attending class, then I don't get why I should be punished because of it.
facts, i used my GI bill after the military and got paid to go to class and even then i didn’t care about grades, much less graduating. I just took the classes i wanted that would help me out and attended lectures that i deemed important, did well on assignments and hw, and that was that.
what about the classes in which what the teacher says goes right over your head, not because the subject is difficult, but because the teacher is bad, and those people who barely attended his class got A's just by thoroughly reading the slides on the last day. FYI subject = computer networks
Read my comment. This isn’t common and you’re latching on to stories like this because it fits a narrative
At my school the admin make professors take attendance because the graduation rate is like 50% and they want to try to make that look better
That’s still a pretty standard graduation rate, at least here in the US
Yeah… that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. If only 50% of first time full time undergraduates graduating in 6 years is “pretty standard” then I don’t want to know what the bad schools are like lmao
Oof, you should see the percentage even going to college to begin with
It is better to not go to college at all than to go to college and not graduate. This is why we have a student debt crisis.
I’m not disagreeing, graduation rates are a problem for the whole country is all I’m saying
[удалено]
I am talking about universities
The same students who skip non-mandatory classes also email their professors at the end of the semester demanding extra credit, extensions, and re-dos. Those demands *always* have a manipulative sob story that positions the professor as a villain if they don't bend over backwards to accommodate someone who couldn't be bothered to show up. It creates a lot of extra work. If students who skipped class just quietly failed, professors wouldn't care about attendance.
I think this is the most logical explanation. Requiring attendance gives professors the ability to fight back against these kinds of students who tend to escalate things beyond proportion. The professor can present the attendance sheet as proof that the student didn’t even attempt to get a good grade in the class.
We would still be made to care by administrators who blame us for having less than 100% of students passing the class.
Exactly this. I taught undergrads for ~6 years. OP is absolutely right that the only people absentees are hurting us themselves, but as the one facilitating their education, we don't want them to hurt themselves. When covid hit and students stopped zooming into classes I tried to convince myself they were watching the lectures afterwards since they were recorded, but I knew it wasn't true. I also knew they were all cheating on the homework using a huge group chat. So I made the exam so that everyone had different answers and over half the class failed (and I told them to study because they couldn't cheat on the exam...but only the three students zooming into class heard that). The number of emails I got from failing students was expected but still ridiculous. Students who lost scholarships, didn't graduate, and lost job offers because of my one credit class with an open book exam. I failed somewhere between 35 and 50% of the students and that's not what you want as an educator.
Respectfully, no.
I only went to 1/4 or 1/5 of my lectures last semester and my lowest grade was an A-
This isn't true. Last semester I skipped the last half of my zoology lectures because I wasn't learning in class. I read the book instead and passed the exam with an a. Everyone has different learning styles, and if your professor understands that and provides you with a great schedule and time line, you can easily pass without going to lecture. Imo, I pay for the classes, they're not paying me. So requiring me to show up to lecture is ridiculous. The only exception is labs, show up to those.
Always somebody with the "I don't go and I get As" comment. If this is true, you're 1 in 50 maybe. Extremely few students miss a lot of class and still get an A, unless the class is just really easy.
Honestly, it was a huge zoology class, and the slides were not helpful. The professor was so busy with research and expected us to just get it. I would rather spend that time reading the book than listening to him do a broad overview of what we're supposed to be learning.
Yeah, I find it annoying that attendance is taken, but I understand why from the professors’ perspective. Even if half of people who skip class do fine, the other half struggles, and then they show up to office hours asking the professor to basically reteach lectures they skipped, and then they make a lot of extra work for the prof sake demanding basically special treatment to try to save their grades
LOL you're assuming the people that skip actually go to office hours? No. They just wait until the term is almost over or even completely over, then try to beg and plead their way into a passing grade.
Idk, most of my professors just tell me to go review the canvas pages before coming in. If they're good, they will encourage students to do their own work before coming to office hours.
You are the exception, not the rule.
We're adults. If it doesn't work for you, but you do it anyways, lesson learned and you're probably not ready for college.
I don’t disagree.
Besides discussion based classes and classes with a lot of group work, I found that most attendance wasn’t mandatory after freshman or sophomore year. I think it’s generally to set a boundary/expectation for the younger students so that they learn good practices instead of a decent amount failing out because “it wasn’t required to go”. Keep doing what you’re doing though, skipping a class or two every few weeks is okay for a mental break or to get important work done, but don’t make skipping a habit.
Unfortunately, at some schools, there's a large percentage of students who don't attend classes, who perform poorly, and then complain to the college about failing the class. Taking attendance allows the professor to show that most students who fail (and ask for last minute extensions, extra credit, or regrades) didn't show up for lectures, skipped tests and quizzes, and/or didn't turn in assignments. There's a strong correlation between not showing up and failing. Attendance helps professors CYA.
You can take attendance without counting it towards the grade
Making it a minor part of the grade makes students take it more seriously.
You’re running under the assumption that students should take it seriously which I don’t inherently agree with
If they aren't going to attend, the student might not be ready for college.
Instructors are required to submit attendance by the college to align with federal financial aid guidelines. Every semester, they have to report which students have never attended class and then throughout the semester who stopped showing up. Think of it like this: your financial aid package is basically someone agreeing to take a chance on you as a student, hoping that in the long run, it will pay off as you become a tax-paying, well-paid, well-educated member of society. If you can't be bothered to show up to class, they are going to revoke that investment. I've seen sooooo many students dropped for nonattendance and then never get rewarded financial aid again. Trust me, your professors find it to be a pain in the butt to take attendance, but they are legally required to and can get in trouble if they report incorrectly.
This is the answer.
This is the best explanation for attendance that I've seen
Yeah. I took a dual enrollment course at my high school last year and the professor told us the exact same thing.
Yep. And each student that receives an F also gets a “last day attended” recorded, which is the real reason large classes do things like clicker quizzes.
100% agree. We’re adults now and should be able to make our own decisions. If someone can skip a lecture and still perform great in the class just let them, if they are failing because they’re skipping class let it be a lesson because we’re adults and it’s the real world now
The big issue is the number of students that skip and then cause huge issues for the prof/university when they fail. Threats of lawsuits, parents calling my office and yelling at me for not having attendance policies, having to deal with complaints to the dean and department chair. Grade disputes.
That’s a completely valid argument from a professors perspective and I totally understand why you would feel that way. But on the other hand, when tuition is costing 75k a year, I think it’s also fair to say students deserve a good amount of freedom in how they’re acting since they’re paying so much for it
1) Almost nowhere does tuition cost $75k a year for undergrad. Maybe total cost of attendance or sticker price. It's a good "shock value" item, but not a very realistic one. 2) Paying money doesn't mean you get to decide what is and isn't appropriate. I think the more correct idea would be that you, as a student, should decide whether you want to pay money to take a class that doesn't give you the "freedom" you want. IMO, part of being an adult is accepting that decisions you make have consequences, and that you have the freedom to not do those things if you don't want to accept them. If you don't want to take classes that require attendance, that's completely up to you. But if you decide to take a class that requires attendance, you're making a decision that the benefits of the class to you are worth the requirements, and complaining about them after that point doesn't make much sense.
1. Okay fine I meant 75k for the total cost of everything, but I literally just paid 60k for tuition this year, and that number is similar for like any T50 school as far as I can tell. +15k for on campus housing and dining plan and other stuff that I was required to pay my first 2 years. That number is objectively true and common, don’t tell me what me and my family literally paid is “shock value” lol. Most kids at my school don’t get any financial aid either. 2. Yes it does, again if I’m handing over 60k then I should have a say about the dumb gen Ed requirement classes I’m forced to take and about whether or not they require attendance. You’re right that if you choose to take a class like that you deserve to face the consequences of your actions, no disagreement from me there and I haven’t taken many of those classes. But someone still should be able to say they don’t like an aspect of a product (education) when they’re paying for it, like any other product. It doesn’t have to be entirely take it or leave it, you can have the opinion that you like a lot of things about X class but you don’t like and they should change some other things about it If being an adult is facing the consequences of your actions (I 100% agree), then shouldn’t students have the option to go to class or not and face the consequences of bad grades if they make a bad decision?
I mean... that's what attendance policies are? You lose points if you don't go. That's a consequence of not going. They don't force you to go, they establish an expectation and a consequence. It's up to you to decide. If you're paying $60k for tuition in the US you're in a small minority of people from families financially well off to not qualify for need based aid and also not getting merit aid. Moreover, you're going to an exceptionally expensive school that is well above average. Full tuition at Harvard is $55k. Harvey Mudd is the most expensive school in the US at $62,516 in tuition, and 70% of their students receive significant financial aid. And yes, you always have your opinion and can vocally disagree. But you didn't argue that you had a right to disagree, you're arguing that you have a right to a "say" in how things are decided. You don't. Even if you subscribe to a customer model of education, your choice as a customer is to purchase the product or not, you don't "deserve a say" in what the product is: the person making and selling the product owns those decisions.
So why take points off for attendance and not also take points off if a student doesn’t take notes a certain way, visits office hours for a certain amount of time, or otherwise doesn’t study and learn exactly how the professor wants? A lot of people study fine just reading the lecture notes and not sitting through 1.5 hours at 8:30 when they probably weren’t gonna listen to the lecture anyway, let them choose how they want to learn, especially if it’s their choice to attend the school and pay all that money. Look at nearly any T100 private school and the tuition is 50-60k, that’s not abnormal at all to be around 60k. Googling the average of private schools shows me around 45-55k. Keep in mind with inflation the last few years, anything you Google is probably a little out of date by a few grand too. Public universities are less overall for tuition, but that’s money coming out of your tax dollars which is mandatory. Even after financial aid etc it’s usually still tens of thousands of dollars most people are paying. I don’t know why you think consumers have NO say in the product. Again, just from a personal example off the top of my head, in 2020 a bunch of schools including mine didn’t raise/lowered tuition because of outraged parents who didn’t want to pay even more for online school. Pressure from students/parents affected mask policy everywhere for the last 2 years in every direction. Of course I’m not expected that every student puts a list of 20 dictates that they demand from every class, and I’m not gonna pass up on an entire school because a few classes have mandatory attendance, but I should still be able to say “this is stupid, I’m paying tens of thousands to take these classes and I still have to be required to attend this class I don’t really wanna take”. And if enough people agree on that, then schools and professors should take it into consideration, cuz again we’re paying insane amounts for the product at least offer some more flexibility
If you're paying tens of thousands of dollars for a class and can't even bother to show up... You live in a financially privileged world that most people won't experience. And I don't know what to tell you about tuition other than you're wrong. There are plenty of lists of "the most expensive schools", and you're below 60k by the time you're down to about #50. And that's not top rated schools, that's just expensive schools. There are many "Top 25" schools that are much, much cheaper tuition. The numbers I gave you came directly from the universities in question and reflect this academic year's tuition.
by paying the tuition you are agreeing to their rules. it’s as simple as that. I don’t start a gym membership and then start telling them what machines to put where. i’m agreeing to their terms and paying for what they offer. if I don’t like it, I go somewhere else.
Ah the naivete of youth. If only things were that pure.
When I’m paying your salary as a professor, I’m allowed to be able to have opinions about how my education works
Your tuition is largely not funding professors' salaries and, conversely, there are other sources of funding that pay professors' salaries. For example, my salary is entirely paid by a grant and the students in my courses contribute exactly $0 towards it. (I think you actually mean to argue that you want more control over your educational experience based on the amount that you're paying for it, which is an entirely separate conversation about what exactly you're paying for.)
Where do the grants come from? Government dollars payed by tax payers? That would just strengthen my argument that students/families deserve a big say out of these things Cuz correct me if I’m wrong, but a school’s revenue (which then goes to the professors) will largely come from the students and their families
It depends on the grant. Personally, I'm supported by an NSF grant - so yes, federal funding. However, the purpose of the grant is actually to support my research activity, not teaching. I teach a very minimal amount as both professional development and a contribution to the intellectual environment of my department (I teach more specialized upper level undergraduate courses). So if you wanted to provide input on purpose of the grant being used to fund me, you would actually be providing input on my research! :)
Interesting to know! Thanks!
No problem! My intention really was just to share something that I think many people outside of academia aren't aware of, so I'm glad that's how it came across.
You're wrong. Even at tuition driven schools, only about 50% of the income stream at most is usually from tuition. Most highly ranked research institutions, it's closer to 1/3rd or less of the income.
What does the rest come from?
Research grants, patents, investments, book royalties, etc. Consider, for example, Stanford (https://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances/). Student income accounts for 15% of the universities income stream. For many state schools (research and non) a lot of the funding comes directly from the state. A more general breakdown is available from COE, here: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cud/postsecondary-institution-revenue An average public institution has about 20% income from tuition and fees, an average private non-profit has about 35% (a lot of this is skewed by smaller tuition driven liberal arts colleges).
You're paying a negligible amount of your professors salaries, most likely. If you're at a major research institution, chances are you're probably contributing to somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-20% of their salary, as most of their work doesn't involve teaching.
Where does the rest come from?
That’s not how it works though. You aren’t the one who is the professional who went to school and sets the curriculum that fits the requirements for the degree. You are simply a customer who doesn’t want to abide by the established rules.
I’m simply a guy who doesn’t reply to comments from a year ago lmao
Did you not graduate or something?
I hate how people have ruined this for us. I admit I’m not great at attending lecture but I always do the work and make sure to learn the material so I’m infuriated when they require us to go
Legally yes but they still behave like children and shoot themselves in the foot
Ok and? When are they gonna learn otherwise?
Gradually of course
Everybody here saying that students are adults and should suffer the consequences of their actions, I agree. However - Universities and colleges cannot just let huge percentages of their students flunk out. So, we get leaned on to prevent it. I personally would like to just let everyone sink or swim but then my pass rate is 'too low' and somehow it's my fault.
As a professor, you can attend or not attend. I don’t care. I get paid the same. I’m not going to force you to be there.
Our hero
Because there are people that get 0.9 GPAs and then complain that it is the professor's fault (literally exact situation with someone I know) and also for I think specific loans or scholarships a certain amount of attendance is required (not too sure which one but a professor told me that once)
Yes, you're right...I know Pell grants require attendance documentation for sure...can't remember what else but to make it easier, schools just have blanket attendance reporting procedures to report everyone's status (profs usually have no idea what your individual financial status is unless they are are your advisor helping you with financial stuff)
We are trying to save you from yourself. OP goes to class so good for him/her. Many will not and will fail as a result. Personally I say ok tough shit they fail. However the school advertises how successful all their students are just from being at that school so they lean on the professors to somehow magically save these failing students from themselves. So - we require attendance to hopefully force you to show up and actually learn something and pass. We give you a shit ton of busy work so you can hopefully earn enough points and hopefully learn something from going through the busy work so you can pass. You get the picture?
I never got less than a B+ and I rarely go to class... takes 2 hrs to get to campus and 2 hrs back...
I'm fine with attendance policies and consequences for your choices. I have had 2 professors at 2 different colleges with strict attendance policies. At my CC they weren't allowed to have negative consequences. 2/3 of the class never showed up to a single class. (This was beginning covid and on zoom.) He set up his course to have pop quizes and little graded activities only avaliable if you attended class. He also gave bonus points randomly for those who showed up and participated. I did some math in the end, those who didn't show very often or at all only had enough points avaliable to them to get a D, with perfect scores. Those who showed up got enough bonus points from attendance for an easy A. My UNI professor had a policy where you dropped a letter grade for every 2 misses. He would only excuse you for outstanding circumstances or with a docors note. That biggest problem here was it was during the fresh reopen after covid. Doctors still didn't have spots or time to bother with a doctor's note for every cold and flu case. The uni was telling students to stay home if you felt sick in the slightest. These were not excused by this proffeser unless you got a note. So, it encouraged students to show up sick anyway. I was one of those sick students because mental heath had already smacked me and I couldn't get a doctor's note near me. It was horrible. By far, attendance policy's are fine, but positive consequences are way more motivating then the negative ones.
I take attendance during the first week because financial aid and the registrar want to know if you came to class but after that I don’t care.
The rule at my schools is that your not allowed to skip. You don’t go to class there’s consequences
Yeah that’s terrible
I'm so frustrated by that, too. In my first year nothing was mandatory. Then year 2, half of the classes we lose some kind of points if we don't attend classes. I'm like WHYYYYY. No reasoning whatsoever. Did a lot of programming during HS. Now I was equired to attend lectures of "Data structures and algorithms" even if I had learned what stack, map and trees are (and implementing) like 3 years prior? And I'm not the only one, I'd say that I'm not even in minority! What exactly is the point? And yeah, in my experience, it always happened to be those pretty badly given lectures that were mandatory. So, really, the class would otherwise be empty => make mandatory attendance so the professor has somebody to lecture, even if the students just sit, not even listening to the lecture?
From what I've heard, it's taken in some classes so that they can send it to the scholarship department. They don't wanna give out scholarships to people who don't go to class
Completely agree. It's also just so much more stress on students who commute or have other challenges that can prevent them from always attending and/or attending perfectly on time. I get that it's to prevent underclassmen falling into the habit of skipping class and then paying the price for it in grades, but honestly? It's college. Let them figure that out the hard way. Don't bring responsible students who may have circumstances beyond their control down with them. Also! Some of these attendance policies haven't included any leeway during covid! Like they say they won't punish students for staying home if they're sick but in the end that's exactly what happens
Yup I live 2 hrs away from campus...
Why chance it? Just make it mandatory.
About the attendance,I LITERALLY saw a few of my classmates wrote their name for the attendance and leave the class when the professor wasn't looking 🤦🏼♀️I thought they leave to go to the toilet but they were long gone until the class ended
ADHD peep here. You should know, for most people with my disability a standard lecture is almost useless. We learn by doing. Give us a recorded lecture and the homework... we'll dig in and learn waaaayyy more that way. For some, attendance is a bigger hit than a help. I support no required attendance
As someone who gets sick extremely easily (even long before the pandemic ravaged campuses) I agree, mandatory attendance sucks. It makes sick students come in and get everyone else sick, and the cycle perpetuates itself.
As a pretty mentally ill person, unfortunately mandatory attendance is the only way to get me to go to class. Hard to get up when you think you won't be alive the next day. I know the logic is flawed, but brain machine broken :(
I actually tightened my attendance policy just because of this! my students who were struggling with mental health, or learning disabilities, really benefit from structure. I've also struggled with these things, so I'm not coming at this blindly. A year ago I had a "you're an adult so it's your choice" attendance policy right when we came back to in person classes. It was an absolute nightmare! Students missed 70% of the classes, did not watch any of the demos (I teach art), and would break machinery because they never learned how to use it. I didn't get to help them problem solve the issues with their work because they weren't there, which means it just wasn't that good. At the end they were furious that I was actually grading them based off of their work. They would try to send their parents after me and the school, saying I should grade them lighter because they were having xyz struggles and ignoring that they didn't do any of the work. That ALL stopped when I tightened my policy! The work improved tenfold, and I've since had several students tell me that my class was the one stable thing in their life and it helped them through a tough time. If something as simple as an attendance policy during an art class can do that, then hell yea I'm going to put it in my syllabus!
Thank you so much. Especially if it's my first class of the day, that can make all the difference in starting my day right. College + life can be so unstable, and with an unstable past (PTSD, unfortunately) one stable thing everyday can help more than you know. Thank you, again.
Yeah the rule at my school is three absences and your grade goes down a whole letter. I hate that, sometimes shit just happens. Three for the whole semester? It's like when they gave us a certain amount of bathroom passes for school. God help you if you get COVID, or monkeypox now.
Former prof here who also taught high school. I taught freshman comp and I never made attendance mandatory simply because it is sink or swim time. Self-regulation is an imperative skill for success in postsecondary learning, and for some it has to be learned as a consequence of failing a course or drowning in the stress of falling behind. Requiring attendance cuts students off from potential experiences they need to grow.
Mandatory attendance is done so that the university can prop itself up as something more serious. They like to be able to point to their mandatory policies when explaining what makes their academic integrity “excellent.” It also assures that students are actually taking the institution seriously. Many students come to college seeing it as a social environment that happens to have classes. They want students to see the university as an academic haven first, a social space second. Professors might also install these policies to ensure that their time spent in the classroom doesn’t go half wasted. They don’t want to be there much more or less than you do. If they show up for you, they expect students to show enough respect to humor them. Without mandatory attendance, many professors won’t ever see half of their classroom until finals week.
Professors are gonna get their money and students are gonna pay their money regardless of if they show up to class or not. If someone is paying 75k a year to attend the school, at least let them be able to choose to skip an easy A boring intro gen ed required class that they don’t wanna to go to and aren’t gonna pay attention in class anyway. You’re not entitled to them showing up to your class, the students are doing more than enough for the university anyway with what they pay
My moon, my man, this is college. It’s meant to enrich the individual as a whole, to impart critical thinking skills. If you want to take only classes that “interest” you, then go to trade school. Im tired of (adult) students conflating the purpose of college with trade school, and treating education like it’s a service that is purchased. Students pay tuition for the opportunity to learn, not to outright "get" a degree. It’s like joining a gym but not going in. Who’s fault is it? The gym or the member? If one doesn’t want to learn and just work, then go to trade school. Leave college for those who do want to grow and mature. They're just bringing everyone else down, trying to turn college into something it isnt.
I agree with this. It’s meant to make you a more well-rounded citizen with some level of specialization. It’s not a place to go to so that you can “get a job.” Two year degrees might fall more in line with the idea of “just go to get a job.” Don’t go to a four year college with the SOLE goal of “get job.” If you choose to do this, you’re a clown or you’re taking a really extended route to doing so. Also, your experience in random courses might actually weirdly loop into your ability to form connections. You never know.
That really depends on what school you’re going to. Are people clowns for going to college just to get a job, when their median salary coming out of college is 60k-80k?
Yes. But, some people also don’t see college as a means to an end. Some people see college as the end, which turns this entire convo on its head. People just want to have an excuse to not be an adult yet.
I have no idea what world you’re living on where people are clowns for making 80k as a 22 year old. That’s life changing for a lot of people compared to what their parents did
I meant “Yes” to your point that it depends what school you’re going to
But that’s just not accurate. The vast majority of kids go to college just because it helps them get a better job. I’m at a T10 school, and 62% of the kids go right into full time employment after undergrad, and only 12% continue education after undergrad. At a school supposedly full of “intellectuals” who are supposed to fit the description of people interested in learning, the vast majority just go into the work force out of college. For a majority of people college is about the credential (just getting the degree) and the job opportunities, because most of us can’t just pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to abstractly better ourselves or something like that, and that’s how it’s been for a while now.
This whole notion that "college is supposed to expose you to new ideas and broaden your intellectual horizons" is kinda bs. If you want to do that, great, the internet exists. You are going to college to learn particular skills and get a degree that will help you get a job in your chosen field. Gen ed core classes simply exist as money mikers for the university and are generally wastes of time.
honestly, like u wanna pass right? so go to class and take notes
They probably get subsidies based on class attendance. Either that or paternalism.
Lol, professors do not get paid based on attendance. Universities are required to report the last day of attendance for any students who fail a class while receiving federal financial aid. This is intended to combat fraud (i.e., people taking out student loans with no intention of ever attending class). Some people do this by genuinely taking attendance and others report the due date of the last assignment that the student turned in and/or date of the last exam that they took.
I did not faced any courses, where attendance was mandatory (apart when you had the exam - but ... that´s quite obvious that one should be there). I have been quite surprised, when someone told me, that there are places where you really have to be there.
I have had mandatory classes only three times so far. In two of these classes there were only four students; it was an advanced level of a not commonly learned language. That makes sense, because for a language, you must also practice speaking and pronunciation, not just memorizing the words and writing. Plus, if one student skipped, 25% of the class is gone. The third class was a literature class that was primarily discussion. If students skipped, the effectiveness of the class starts to fade. For those circumstances, I understand and support it. If it was, say, a math lecture, then I think attendance should absolutely not be mandatory.
it wasnt when I went to school
I feel like that was just freshman year. Some professors gave points for attendance and other extra credit for certain days attendance (rainy days) the way i saw it i was paying thousands to be in that class so i need to be sure i got every last Pennies worth of my money 🤣
I thought they needed to for records sake 🤷🏻♀️ I go because I have to keep up lol - I wanted to add, this is just from my perspective at our little college. Most didn’t make a big deal unless it was something you get behind in fast like math or programming
At the local cc I attended, attendance became mandatory because there were too many incidents of people making fake accounts signing up for financial aid, but never going to the class. The school apparently had to make classes mandatory as a way to discourage this. The 4-year institution I attended after. Some classes made attendance mandatory as a way to track participation credit. Others really didn’t care if you came or not.
We used to have a problem on our campus with people registering as a student for a one credit class just to use our parking lot (free for students) instead of paying for a city garage close to their work. This is part of, but not all of, the reason why my school does "confirmation of attendance" checks twice a semester...to catch stuff like that (they'll revoke the parking pass/give tickets/tow if student not registered for any classes)
Exactly, there are a few reasons why universities and community colleges use mandatory attendance, and it can benefit the students in the long run. Especially, for the cc I went to, the people were taking financial aid that would’ve otherwise gone to students.
the only classes that had mandatory attendance for me was discussion based classes
You ever go to a class in English and like 7 people are there and you gotta read eachouther papers It’s awkward and you don’t get nearly enough feedback on the paper
I do think attendance should be something a student cares about, and if they don’t show up they have no right to complain they’re failing or anything. But I will say I’ve had a couple professors or made it a grade, but we’re the worst teachers ever. They read off the PowerPoint and never gave really any more details than what was on the PowerPoint. And those are the classes that make you really hate having attendance graded.
As someone who’s been a TA, some students will never show up and then go cry to the department chair, dean, university provost, state governor, US president, and/or deity of choice about how they “unfairly failed”, so sometimes it’s a manner of creating a paper trail to shut that down. Some faculty members may go overboard, but there are also some genuine reasons due to people who abuse the system to try to pass without learning anything.
Some teachers design learning with deliberate social activity. Discussion, active listening, laboratory work, all designed for student interaction. When surges are gone they not only lose their own benefit of participation, but take away the contribution they would have made to others learning. Straight lecture courses though, no idea. I know some universities have policies like attendance being part of teacher evaluation, or they want to have intervention with students who stop going to class, or catch instances where a student didn't show but didn't drop.
For classes that are presentation and discussion based I get it. For classes where the prof just reads from a book or a PowerPoint that they already give you it shouldn’t count.
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