General education requirements are long and tedious, and people often feel like they have no relation to whatever degree a student is pursuing. Gen eds often do not help students since many students come into college with a good idea of what they are and aren’t good at and what subjects they would never take even in their nightmares. For everyone, they are a waste of time and money and need to be cut back.
Gen ed courses are classes everyone must take to get the degree they are pursuing. Classes are in the subjects of English, math, science, art, social sciences, humanities and sometimes a foreign language. All students should have to take some of these like English because the ability to write and comprehend is invaluable for all majors and career paths. However, math classes may not be useful to all majors. A mass communication major does not need to take a math class if they don’t want to. Similarly, a biology major shouldn’t have to take another science course if they don’t desire to. Not only would getting rid of these gen eds save students time, but it would also save them money.
The 2017 fall semester tuition cost for 15 hours is $4,023.30, roughly equaling $270 per credit hour. If the University got rid of gen eds all together, they would have saved the students nearly $74 million in this freshman class alone. The likelihood of all gen eds being taken out is slim to none, but the amount of savings for the students would be immense. The savings could be used in so many ways directly school related and could potentially save many students from not having to take out loans.
Besides the economic gain, the University, the state and the students seem to dislike gen eds. Often the classes are far too broad, leading to mass information in short periods of time. These classes should be grade buffers, but they may end up being GPA killers for some students due to difficulty and general apathy toward the classes themselves.
The University could help alleviate students’ stress by abolishing gen eds, but a more likely, student-friendly solution could be decreasing the number of gen eds and giving students more a choice of electives. Another idea is just to have more elective hour requirements and do away with gen eds as specific subsections of requirements.
Financially, the University would be doing a massive service to the students by doing away with or cutting back on gen ed requirements. The information is there, and all that is left is the hope LSU catches on.
Miles Jordan is a 19-year-old liberal arts sophomore from New Orleans, Louisiana.
