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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                Chris Elliott                        Zach Lee                  Christian Palmer
                Geronimo Rodriguez       Blake Whitaker       Kristen Young

Summers spent studying pay off 

Nothing can quite compare to the freedom of summer vacation. Some students get to go home and have someone else buy their food for three months, but even students who have to work to pay their rent and bills can focus on relaxing. Waiting tables -- though not everyone's cup of tea -- is far easier than reading and studying to make good grades.

But students may want to reconsider taking the summer off, regardless of who pays their bills.

Complaints about higher tuition and the student fees usually litter the pages of The Daily Cougar for the first few days of every fall semester. If people fail to whine about parking, they'll make up for it by bemoaning the rising cost of higher education. 

We've made our share of complaints about that cost ourselves.

But there is one thing -- a simple thing -- that students can do to get out of school while they can still pay for tuition: They can go to summer school.

Don't turn the page yet.

We understand how important vacations are -- especially while keeping up the college tradition of eating three value-menu meals a day -- but there will be plenty of time for vacations after graduation.

Besides, summer school doesn't start until more than two weeks after the end of the spring semester. (The official closing day for Spring is May 12, but Summer Session I doesn't start until May 30.) Two weeks is a lot of nap time.

And the payoff is huge. Taking care of some classes during the summer can make graduation that much closer, which makes a life of not waiting tables ever again that much closer as well. Even students planning on going to graduate school benefit from that accelerated approach.

Students who decide to take classes during the summer should be careful not to bite off more than they can chew, however; most summer classes meet every day, so it's not as easy to balance a heavy course load with a heavy workload.