Why should attendance be made mandatory if this is college-- supposedly a close representation of the real world where no one is going to hold our hands to make sure we are on time for our job interviews?  Some teachers take attendance as a grade; others could care less, taking the road of least resistance.  I can understand why teachers want us to attend.  Students have a better chance of passing if they attend class and actively participate.  Unfortunately for teachers, they cannot force us to actively participate.  Therefore, even if we attend, we could still stare blankly at the chalkboard and let our drool drip slowly onto the linoleum floor.  

The achievement of passing a class can only be determined by the individual student.  No matter how much our professors strictly monitor our attendance, their chances of seeing us again  the following semester are only high if we choose not to take our education seriously.  We have all taken a class whose subject induces a stupor despite the professor's animation.  Most students tend to skip these classes, attending only on test days.  If you are a good student and do the work outside of class, the grade differentiation between those who attend and those who don't aren't visible.  What it comes down to is personal motivation.

Obviously, not every UT student has the same level of academic expectation.  This variation in opinion says a lot about the individual person's future.  Some are satisfied with mediocre work while others are only happy when they excel.  Though the university wants to cultivate a scholarly atmosphere, they cannot directly influence the students' behavior.  Through subtle encouragement with elitist organizations such as the honors program, that creates an academic hierarchy; to enrichment programs such as Ready for the World, UT sends subliminal messages to its students.  Are these messages being received?  Potentially, yes.  Is this method more effective than requiring classroom attendance?

If classroom attendance were required to receive a college diploma, there might be a visible decrease in the incidence of students skipping class.  Personally, I am a fan of the forgiveness policy.  For instance, say you have a chemistry lab for which the syllabus dictates that if you miss one class, points are automatically deducted from your final score.  Does your grade then truly reflect your capability in the field of chemistry?  You could be a certified genius and receive a C for not attending class, which would give the wrong impression to future employers. 

Outside of being a tedious affair, required classroom attendance would be a pointless rule that would be broken most likely as often as it is now.  Higher education costs are directly in the hands of the students, no longer being supplemented by government grants (outside of scholarships which are still the students' responsibility to apply for).  If we are paying for our tuition and textbooks, then logically we will take our education  far more seriously.  We are more aware of the expensive nature of education because it's our checkbooks that are being depleted, not the taxpayers'.  Attending or not attending class is a relatively unimportant matter that should be left to the students' discretion.  Our individual parameters that we have set in order for us to receive our diplomas are different, as are our studying habits.  Therefore, the students should be able to dictate their attendance.