During the average college student’s educational career, most will have to take a much-dreaded 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. class at least once. Though you don’t see many students excited for these three hour blocks of class, time spent on class materials should be prioritized instead of compromised.

Whether this be through utilizing the three hours of class once a week or scheduling ample time outside of the classroom to work on subject matter, you sign up for a class to learn. Though we all love getting out of class early to sneak in some extra Netflix time, we should be looking long-term. Will you benefit more from an extra episode of Friends or a skill that can help you in your future professional life?

For a lower division, full-time student, in-state tuition is $11,078 and out-of-state is $15,744 for the entire year. For a full-time upper division student, in-state tuition is $11,648 and out-of-state is $16,344. Using those numbers, the average student at Grand Valley State University is paying about 41 cents per minute per class. That means for every hour of class skipped, a student is losing $24.60. That may not seem like a ton of money, but it can add up quickly. If we break this down further to apply to a three hour class, every class period skipped would signify a loss of $73.80. That’s a whole lot of money that gets wasted when professors provide less than the full three hours of instruction. This instruction can come in a variety of forms, some of which may not necessarily take place in a classroom. However that information is disseminated to students, it is the responsibility of the professor to give the students the agreed-upon amount of instruction.

As students, we are expected to regularly attend class and if we miss class too often, it can result in a loss of credit or another academic consequence. This being said, we understand that things come up. We have all been in a situation where a family emergency or sickness has prevented us from fulfilling our academic duties, and we must remember that professors are people too.

As reported in the recent article, “Taking attendance,” the GVSU Faculty Handbook states that faculty members are responsible for meeting all classes for which they are scheduled. If a faculty member is absent, they are required to notify the appropriate department head and make plans to cover missing teaching assignments. Ultimately, if a situation does arise, accommodations in place of class should be made.

For students as well as professors, getting the appropriate money’s worth of information out of a class is important. The length of many classes can depend on the subject matter, but that doesn’t mean that a professor shouldn’t give students their full attention.

While 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. classes are rough on all of us, students expect and pay for a certain amount of learning each semester. Whether this is accomplished through in-class instruction, outside-of-class assignments or extra amounts of professor feedback, each 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. classes need to provide an experience worth paying $73.80 for.