Whether they love it or hate it, everybody has an opinion about Grand Valley State University’s general education program.

Some students see the courses, which run the gamut from math to science to philosophy to theater, as a waste of their precious 120 college credits, but others view them as an opportunity to explore interests beyond their majors and minors. Some of those concerns are well-founded, particularly among students who’ve found their passions or are enrolled in demanding programs, which makes students all the more hopeful that the recent changes the General Education Committee of the University Academic Senate has proposed will give them greater control over the courses they take, a change that will benefit everyone involved.

While general education programs can introduce students to a broad spectrum of topics and viewpoints, they can also take students on a seemingly pointless academic tangent unrelated to either their area of study or area of interest. By replacing the Theme requirement, which gives students a narrow focus, with Issues, which will connect broad issues more thoroughly with students’ majors, there should be enough variety for both students taking courses for interest and for relevance to be satisfied.

While these changes won’t go fully into effect until 2016, too late for today’s students to take advantage of, it’s still encouraging to see the university listen to student concerns and make genuine efforts to address them. And with the changes they made, hopefully everyone will be satisfied. Those who enjoy the benefit of a wide variety of courses should be able to do so, and those who have found their passion and want to focus in on it should be able to find general education courses that are in, or at least relate, to their field.