As far as many colleges go, you are only able to miss a class once or twice before you receive further punishment. This seems pretty easy to do until halfway through the semester when you've already missed the same class twice and you have the flu. In reality, the attendance policy at universities is bogus and here's why.
1. Illness.
When in college, you are likely to be around people 24/7 between having a roommate, community bathrooms, and classes. The more you're around people, the more germs you're likely to contract. This increases your chances of getting sick and therefore missing more classes.
2. Exhaustion.
Between clubs, classes, homework, friends, Greek life, etc, you are bound to have days where you can't get out of bed due to extreme exhaustion. However, with the current attendance policy, you can't really miss class for exhaustion just in case you end up completely unable to attend class later in the semester.
3. Mental Health.
Having good mental health is important to maintaining homework and grades. Sometimes the best way to maintain mental health is to stay home and work on bettering yourself so that you are better for the rest of the week. Again, with the current policy, you must avoid taking mental health days in case you must miss class later.
4. Why go to class if you can maintain the grade?
This question is commonly asked around by many university students. What is the point of getting graded for attendance? If a student can maintain a good grade in the course as well as turn in all of their assignments, why does it matter how many days they are physically in the classroom?
5. Written excuses.
For many classes, students are expected to have a written reason for missing class in order for it to be excused. However, a student is likely not going to go to the health center over a cold yet they are still in bad shape to attend class. Many college students are adults and are expected to act as adults. In the workplace, employees are not expected to provide a doctors note every time they must miss work. Why isn't this the same for college students if the workplace is what they're trying to prepare for?
6. It's the student's money!
The students are paying to enroll in their courses. If they want to miss class and not get the most out of their courses then they should be able to do so without getting punished. It's their money that they're wasting.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this such as a lab class where a majority of the work is done in the classroom. However, classes that are just note taking and lectures should have a looser attendance policy, allowing students to manage their own time and workload.
