OPINION: College is an investment–take it seriously

Julia Moreno, News Editor

They always roll into class about five minutes late, wearing gray sweats and a high school sweatshirt with messy hair and a look of absolute disinterest. And this is on the day you’re actually seeing them. We all know that one person, the one who barely comes to class and when they do they always ask to bum your notes.

But they should be interested and they should take classes seriously because we are all paying a fair chunk of change to be there. How much, one might ask?

Well, I did some math (and I’m not a fan of math so be happy I did this). It roughly comes out to $60 a class if you’re enrolled in a four-day class and you’re a Washington resident. $60 can buy you a bunch of tacos from Taco Bell, over 1,000 stick-on googly eyes off eBay or . . . you know, a formal education.

Don’t believe me? Central’s Registrar’s office has this handy little feature on its Web site that breaks down how many credits it costs each quarter with students’ fees attached. A one-credit class (shoutout to the bullshit PE courses) costs around $507, including student fees.

So, yes, even though you might not want to go to your ultimate Frisbee class, you are paying close to $500 a quarter to learn the different ways to toss a plastic disc—so learn to enjoy it.

But let’s break it down a little more so you can see how I came up with the figure of 60 bucks per class. It costs $2,896 a quarter to take between 10 to 18 credits. Divide that number by 12 (number of weeks in an average quarter) and that comes out to $241.33. Divide that number by four (I decided to be generous regarding the number of days per week that a class is held) and the amount comes out to $60.33 per class.

If your class meets three times a week, you’re paying $80.44 to go to class that day. And if you’re REALLY lucky, and you only meet twice a week, it’s a whopping $120.67 per class.

Hey, I’m guilty of skipping a class once in awhile, too. I mean who wants to be there day-in and day-out listening to some professor drone on about shit you can usually Google? But now that I’ve put my intermediate math skills to use to figure out how much it costs to go to my twice-a-week classes, you bet your ass I won’t be skipping any more lectures.

Seriously, why would you skip your classes when you are literally paying thousands of dollars to be here? Also, there are a fair number of people who would do anything to be here and learning. Don’t waste it on partying a little too hard the night before, sleeping in and missing your class. Put your money to good use and show up for classes. You never know, you just might actually learn something.