Community College should be exempt

In a proposed amendment in HB 3518, community college students would no longer be subject to the six course drop limit. The ACC Board of Trustees came out in support of this and other legislation that helps college students.

It was never reasonable to expect community college students to stay within this limit. This law should be amended to exempt students not attending a four year college.

Students, and especially community college students, are becoming less traditional by the year. Just over half of the students at ACC are older than 22. Almost 75 percent are part time students. We are not all recent high school graduates, living at home, where we can focus on school, and have someone else foot the bill for tuition.

Another problem with the six drop rule is that if community college students are punished for droping classes while at a two year, those drops haunt them at a four year when they transfer. So, if someone drops four classes at ACC and transfers to a university where the classes are bigger, face-time with your teacher is harder to get, and the work load is even more overwhelming, they will only have two drops left before all six of their drops turn to failing grades and their GPA tanks.

There are exceptions in the current version of the six drop rule that allow students to apply to avoid being penalized for dropping if they have a personal emergency like a death in the family. However, as students are forced to take on more responsibilities outside of school, it will become necessary for them to drop classes, not because of emergencies, but because the work load becomes too much to balance with the rest of their lives.

This new bill was filed on March 11, and read and referred to the higher education committee on March 19, but has not moved forward since. Students should contact their representatives and try to get this bill moving so that it has time to be heard this session. Waiting another year to make these changes could severely damage the records of students forced to continue to comply with six drop rule.