In my three-and-a-half years of attending college, I have met many kinds of people.  I could go on about the different kinds of students I’ve met, but I’ll just get straight to the point of what I want to say.

There are too many students that take their college education for granted.  As college students, we have been given an opportunity to continue our education after high school to obtain a degree.

This is a luxury not many people get to have, so why take this gift for granted by skipping classes because you were too tired or complaining about all the homework you have to do?

Honestly, if there is no family emergency or life crisis in your life and you live on campus, you don’t have a reason to skip.

Eastern’s campus is so small, so why not just get up and walk the less than a quarter mile from your dorm to class?

To give you more motivation to go to class, let’s break down the cost of a college class.

Eastern’s tuition for in-state students is approximately $8,550 for the 2015-16 academic year or $4,275 for a semester.  If you have a class that meets up twice a week for 16 weeks, you have 32 total meetings.

If you have five classes that are like this then you meet up a total of 160 times a semester for all of your classes. Take $4,275 and divide that by 160, and you get the answer of about $26.72.

Every time you miss a class, you waste about $27. You could do a lot of things with that like buy three Jimmy John sandwiches with tip, four movie tickets at the AMC Showplace Mattoon 10 or about 100 cups of Ramen.

But instead you choose to stay in bed because you don’t want to go to class. You already paid to go, so why not just go?

Then there are students who go to class, but complain about all the work they have to do.

Everyone has to do the work in class, so complaining about something that is meant to help you grasp a concept of the class is going to do nothing. People should not get special privileges because they cannot handle the work load.

If you think all of your classwork right now is too much, then life after graduation will most likely be more stressful for you.

Everything that happens in our academic college careers is meant to help us. Nothing is unimportant or taught without a reason.

There are students who will probably read this and think everything I have said so far is dumb, and I’ll argue that you are students who probably don’t take your education as seriously as you should.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2015 that 68.4 percent of high school graduates attend college or a university the following fall after graduation.

Be thankful to be part of that 68.4 percent that gets to continue your education immediately after high school.

Stop complaining about the work and go to class.

Almost 8,000 students have to do it every day on this campus.