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So you're happy to punish 10% of students, for no fault of their own. You'll trade a moment's distraction, for a paid-for day's learning.

That, is a lack of empathy. Especially as for about the last hundred years universities have had a process that allows for the necessary flexibility.

To take this to the extreme... Should we simply fire everyone who is late to work, without reason? If someone else causes a car accident, should we simply revoke the licenses of everyone involved, regardless?



Come now, we can be more extreme than that! Late for class, your city gets nuked. Forget an assignment, bioweapon deployed. Bomb an exam, and you're on the first plane to the front lines in Ukraine.


See also: we can reduce the number of police and compensate by increasing the penalties for crime (late 20th century edition).


> Should we simply fire everyone who is late to work, without reason?

Not necessarily, but I think you’d see a much more consistent attendance rate. Which is of course the whole point of such a policy.


The student is the employer, though. They are paying the university for a service. They aren't the employee.


The student is the customer, not the employer, if you must phrase it in those terms.

And I think education benefits when you define the student as a student, before anything else.


Jonathan Haidt details quite a few reasons why treating a student as a customer creates bad incentives and poor outcomes (just agreeing with you on the student-first point)


Those educational benefits are being denied here, for reasons outside the customers hands.




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