“One of my husband’s former professor’s used to tell her students that education is the only thing we’re generally happy getting less of for our money. We’re happy when the professor cancels class. We’re happy with less homework, less requirements, less writing, less reading, less seat time, less, less, less. There are exceptions to this, those who realize that they are paying for the privilege of higher education, a privilege that women, minorities, and lower-classes have fought for throughout history. But the overwhelming message in our society right now is, the quicker, the better, which is interpreted as the lesser, the better. My students don’t seem to see education as an opportunity, but instead as a chore, and by extension, my required class a just one more obstacle standing in their way to degree completion.”
– Lee Bessette, “Attendance, Retention, and College Success” in Inside Higher Ed