What do you do if you find out your child is skipping most of their college courses?

[Anonymous]

First semester grades are Bs, Cs and one D+ for a sub 3.0 GPA. Investigate on social media and login to their iMessages and they're boasting about skipping class and doing major semester assignments last minute. We're paying 100% of their cost of attendance.

[Anonymous]

Stop paying. Pull them out and let them work and go to community college.

[Anonymous]

They pay tuition or switch to community college.

[Anonymous]

Eh it’s pretty common

Don’t you remember what it was like??

College grades don’t matter if he’s at an elite (top ten plus ivy) or not going to grad school

[Anonymous]

We picked her up at winter break, enrolled in community college and made her get a job. After two years of that she completed her degree at our state school. No conversation was needed, it was this or nothing.

[Anonymous]

We set a GPA requirement for our continued financial support. I would have a conversation with them and say they had one semester to turn things around; if grades weren't good enough after the next term I would stop paying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We picked her up at winter break, enrolled in community college and made her get a job. After two years of that she completed her degree at our state school. No conversation was needed, it was this or nothing.

So no warning, she messed up first semester and you yanked her? It seems most parents will say "you have ONE more semester to pull it together!" But pulling it together is sort of a joke because it's not hard to still goof off and skip and go from a 2.8 to a 3.0 (just avoid the D in the winter term).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We set a GPA requirement for our continued financial support. I would have a conversation with them and say they had one semester to turn things around; if grades weren't good enough after the next term I would stop paying.

What was the GPA requirement? Wouldn't a know-it-all kid just add easy classes, if not an easier major? Avoiding science labs, stats and university calc is an easy way to pump the GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eh it’s pretty common

Don’t you remember what it was like??

College grades don’t matter if he’s at an elite (top ten plus ivy) or not going to grad school

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We picked her up at winter break, enrolled in community college and made her get a job. After two years of that she completed her degree at our state school. No conversation was needed, it was this or nothing.

And she willingly went along with this??

Most kids that age would flip out and run off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eh it’s pretty common

Don’t you remember what it was like??

College grades don’t matter if he’s at an elite (top ten plus ivy) or not going to grad school

But it seems pretty much everyone has to go to grad school these days. And there are hard GPA cutoffs for all the decent internships (3.5+). A sub 3.0 GPA is a huge red flag. Only MAYBE computer science kids would still get decent offers with a sub 3.0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We picked her up at winter break, enrolled in community college and made her get a job. After two years of that she completed her degree at our state school. No conversation was needed, it was this or nothing.

And she willingly went along with this??

Most kids that age would flip out and run off.

+1. My niece's parents did this to her and she's on year 5 or 6 of "taking classes" at the local community college.

[Anonymous]

Brother was told if he wanted to live at home, he had to be enrolled in at least 2 classes each semester and have a job. It took a few semesters, but things eventually clicked and he realized that he wanted the degree and started working harder. He wound up transferring to a great school after getting the Associates.

Everyone doesn't have to be on the same schedule. Plenty of kids aren't ready for college right after HS and blow off getting the job done to have fun. Some parents don't mind, some do.

[Anonymous]

Had a disastrous 2.6 my first semester and a 3.9 my second. Graduated with honors and got a full ride into grad school...all without intervention from my parents.

Sometimes it just takes an adjustment period. One semester isn’t long enough.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on the kid's attitude and why they thought it was o.k. to skip their classes.

Lots of college classes these days are pretty much mandatory attendance. But some of the large lecture hall type classes are easy to skip out on. Sometimes the notes (and even the lecture itself) are also posted online, most of the quiz/test material comes straight from the book...so skipping a class is NBD if you have the study skills to do so.

Once you get that habit of skipping class it's a hard one to break and in the smaller classes it can feel like the walk of shame reappearing in a class after weeks of not being there.

I know because I did that as a freshman, myself. If my kid seemed genuinely regretful for blowing off his/her classes I would probably agree to give them a second chance.