New App Notifies Parents When Their College Student Skips Class

College used to be a place where young adults got their first taste of the real world and learned how to take responsibility for their own choices, but now there’s an app for that. NBC News recently reported on the release of Class120, a new app developed by Core Principal that allows parents to monitor their adult childrens’ college attendance. The premise is pretty simple: both the student and their parents download the app, the student fills in all of their courses and class times, and then the app relies on GPS to follow the student’s schedule and ping parents if their child fails to show up at the correct location on time.

Jeff Whorley, the founder and CEO of Core Prinicipal, says the app’s main goal is to improve class attendance on college campuses.

Jeff Whorley, founder and CEO at Core Principle, said research has consistently shown that going to class correlates with grades better than anything else. And better grades mean a much better chance of graduating.

“The single best thing to improve students’ success in college is simple: Go to class,” Whorley told NBC Nightly News.

Showing up to class correlates with better grades. Who knew?

Improving college attendance is a noble goal and one students should certainly share given the rising costs of attending a university. Skipping class is basically the same thing as walking outside and setting a small pile of money on fire. Students need to learn that for themselves, though, and I’m not sure a phone app that keeps them tethered to mommy and daddy is the best way to go about it.

If you go through college answering to your parents and relying on a child-like fear of them to keep you in line, when do you learn to take ownership of your own choices? I doubt the young adults who forego college and instead jump straight into the workforce have the benefit of a phone app linking them to mom and dad to encourage them to keep showing up to work every day. College students are going to skip class because that’s how humans learn. We test boundaries, we face consequences, and then we learn to weigh our choices against their possible outcomes. In order to understand the consequences of our actions, we have to first be allowed to act shitty.

Mom and dad will not be there to make sure you show up at the crappy entry-level job you get post-college and they won’t be there to make sure you pay your bills on time or budget your funds properly. Important learning happens when you’re forced to stand on your own. I skipped a ton of class when I was a freshman in college. I started failing, of course, and then it was up to me to make amends with professors, pick up extra work, and do whatever it took to correct my mistakes.

If parents are paying for school and truly concerned about protecting the investment they’re making in their child’s education, perhaps they could set some financial limits: refuse to pay for the same class twice, pay only a specific amount each semester and require the student to work to earn the rest, and limit the amount of time they’re willing to pay to, say, 4 years. These may be “kids” in school, but to the big world outside of those walls they’re seen as adults and they should be treated as such.