Students who have a few years until graduation may want to get used to the idea of hot Gainesville summers.
In a climate that favors streamlining a UF student’s education and cutting university costs, mandatory summer classes may become the standard.
Most of us are exempt from taking the required classes now because of credits we earned in high school, but a change to legislation may keep us hanging around town or tethered to our computers during summer.
It sounds off-putting at first, we admit. However, students should keep in mind that the changes would require some students — most likely those with core classes available during summer — to take spring and summer classes, leaving fall open for internships, research, vacations and other typical summer activities.
Would it be a big shift for some of us?
Yes, but only because we’ve been engrained with ideas about summer since we first set foot in our kindergarten classroom.
From day one, we learned it was a time for dodging schoolwork unless you were catching up or getting ahead of the game.
We simply don’t see a problem with shifting that break to the fall.
The new requirement would help increase enrollment at the university, which currently admits only 22 percent of students who apply for the fall.
It also would help cut summer costs by ensuring more income flows into the university from May through August while keeping costs relatively level.
For the financially minded students, there’s also legislation seeking to amend Bright Futures to allow it to pay for the spring-summer plan. The plan would remove a financial burden from students switching to the new schedule.
Even with this effort to make the transition as painless as possible, we’re sure UF would be awash with complaints for the first year of the proposed change.
In fact, we’re expecting some complaints about this editorial alone.
We understand that, at first, students would be confused about when to take internships or how to approach leases with their apartment complexes, given such a strange schedule.
But, as with nearly any change, they would adapt.
For those of you who still are cynical about the possibility, we’ll give you a nod.
Yes, we understand our university operates as a business.
It needs to be as efficient as possible, and that goal often conflicts with the wishes of the faculty, staff and students.
Sometimes, efficiency even takes priority over our educational needs, making us question the machinations of our university administration and state legislature.
In this case, however, we don’t see many downsides to summer courses.
You know, except for living in the middle of a swamp in the midst of a Florida summer or zoning out during online lectures.
