Hello everyone,

Most of you have probably just started or are getting ready to start your spring semester. Some of you might be unhappy about your performance in the fall semester. I sometimes have students ask me how to improve their grades in their classes and after a little bit of probing, I often find that these students can start by making a very simple change which is the first step toward any improvement in performance. Many of these students missed quite a few classes—they simply chose not to attend, most likely because they saw no harm coming from that choice.  What is the harm of missing class? I usually try to explain that when a student misses class, he or  she misses a lot of important information. But that argument doesn’t seem to convince students to make it to class. So here’s a different reason for why you should attend ALL of your classes—it’s a waste of your money not to.

In-state tuition (not including room and board and mandatory fees) at Plymouth State University, where I teach, for the 2011-12 academic year is $9,110. Out-of-state tuition is $16,570. If we do the math, we see that tuition for New Hampshire residents is $4,055 per semester and for non-residents it is $8,285. This price allows students to take between 12 and 17 credits during that semester. Let’s assume students take, on average, 5 courses at 3 credits each. This means that each course costs $811 for residents and $1,657 for non-residents. If a course meets twice a week for 15 weeks, each class period costs a New Hampshire resident $27.03 and a non-resident $52.23. Although these are just estimates for what each class period costs, they are fairly indicative and if you miss a class, you are throwing away some amount of money.

The first step to getting good grades is to attend all of your classes. Make it your goal in the new semester to have perfect attendance. Can you really afford not to?

Cathie