I'm a junior in college, and I am still confused by college absence policies. The logic, or lack thereof, behind these policies is beyond me. I will forever believe that it is unfair that I am paying an unreasonable amount of money to go to school and am still not allowed to miss a few classes without some sort of negative consequence. In my humble opinion, here’s what’s wrong with college absence policies:

Not all teachers obey the university policy.

Most colleges have a university-wide policy about absences. There’s a set amount of absences, excused or unexcused, allowed for Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes and a different amount for Tuesday/Thursday classes. But what good does that do when professors don’t follow them anyway? I’ve had plenty of teachers that have either changed the amount of absences allowed or have made a consequence for every absence you miss.

Some teachers’ policies make absences count against your final grade.

I am not someone who skips class just for the fun of it, and I never will be. I understand why teachers think that they need to punish students who skip constantly, but honestly, their grade will already suffer if they skip enough anyway. For the majority of students who come to class regularly, I think we should be allowed to miss one class without it counting against our grade. My grade should be reflective of my knowledge of class material, not how many minutes I spent in the classroom.

Unless you have an excused absence, you can’t make up a test or quiz.

Again, I understand that some of these policies are made for those students who never show up to class or study and just skip the test because they aren’t prepared. What about the rest of us? These policies tell me that even if I’m throwing up, sick to my stomach I either have to go to the doctor and/or hospital right then and there or I have to go to take my test. What kind of options are those? Since notes from the school health center don’t count as excuses to most teachers, I don’t quite understand what students are expected to do.

Excused absence policies in general.

Like I just said, it is so ridiculous that if I’ve been sick or get sick all of a sudden, I have to go to the doctor within the 50 minute time period of class to be excused. It’s ridiculous that school health center visits don’t count as excused. It’s ridiculous that if I’m going home for a funeral I have to have documented evidence of that to be excused. In my opinion, teachers should be allowed to make exceptions for what is excused without students having to provide ten different forms of documentation to be excused for one single class period.

Absence policies prevent students from going home any time other than holidays.

I’m lucky enough to live within driving distance of home, but that is not the case for a lot of students. For every student that has to fly home, most of them don’t go home until Thanksgiving Break in the fall or Spring Break in the spring. Otherwise, they usually end up having to skip classes on Friday to fly home for the weekend. That seems a little unfair to me. I’m not saying that teachers should accept going home as an excuse multiple times, but they could accept it at least once. How about students can get one excused absence when they have to catch a flight? I feel like that’s fair. Students are stressed and tired, and sometimes we don’t want to wait three months to go home for the first time in a semester.

Like I said before, I understand the basis behind absence policies. I’m not denying that some kids will skip every class if given the chance, but for the rest of the students that go to class consistently, I think we deserve a little slack. What is defined as an “excused absence” should be a little more fluid, and missed absences shouldn’t automatically mean points off your grade. As most teachers tell us they are trying to prepare us for the real world, I would contend that in the real world we get to decide when we skip things and face the consequences ourselves. So we should get to decide when we want to skip a class or two, and we’ll face the consequences that follow. As long as those consequences come from the material we missed, not an automatic grade drop.