The time is drawing near for a rude awakening.

With the end of the semester around the corner, many an NIU freshman will learn a term that symbolizes all the facts they didn’t learn, all the homework they blew off and all the classes they skipped—academic probation.

They’ll try to explain to angry parents why their grades fell to a D-average, but you can bet the stories about late-night drinking, weekend partying and sleeping late won’t slip through their lips.

Now mind you, this isn’t all freshmen and the phenomenon isn’t solely limited to them, either. It’s a problem that strikes mediocre students all over NIU and the nation.

The Kane County school district just discovered a correlation between poor elementary school attendance and the high school dropout rate.

Studying 300 students at Elgin, Aurora East and West, researchers found high school dropouts missed twice as many school days in kindergarten through third grade as did the top 25 graduates.

And by comparison, it’s not hard to realize blowing off class will have a bad effect on your grades. Ooooh, surprise!

Blowing off classes at college is a carryover from the unenlightened days of grade school and high school when school was something to be abhorred and playing hookey something to be admired.

There’s nothing more ignorant than someone who brags about all the classes they’ve skipped and tests they’ve flunked.

After 12 years of public education paid by taxpayers, some college students are slow to realize these four years are coming out of somebody’s pocketbook—whether their parents’ or their own.

By observation, the tendency to skip class seems to afflict people who are 18 to 22 years old—people who have gone to school for so many years in a row they’re sick of it.

The older, returning students seem to have their heads screwed on straighter. They’ve been out in that fabled land you’ve heard of in too many lectures—”the real world.”

But alas, there might be some truth to this. Most returning students juggle school, work and family for one purpose—to get an education to get ahead.

The philosophical argument is that people go to college to enlighten themselves and become better citizens. But in reality, the motivating force for the vast majority is money—the temptation of driving a BMW and hauling in a six-figure income.

And if money’s the primary motivator, here’s some incentive to go to class: the average undergrad taking 15 credit hours pays about $1,120 per semester in tuition and fees—not including room, board and material fees. That’s about $75 per credit hour, or $225 per three-credit-hour course.

Those are kind of abstract figures until you break them down into the kind of money spent on everyday things.

Broken down into smaller units, you pay about $7.75 for one Tuesday/Thursday class and $5.50 per Monday/Wednesday/Friday class.

For $7.75 you can buy a five-course meal at McDonalds or go to the movies and buy popcorn and Raisinettes. In any case, no frugal college student would throw that money away—which is exactly what happens when you skip class.