How much does it cost to miss a class at UC Berkeley?

You might think twice about choosing a nap over class

Whether you were kidding yourself that you could be a morning person and enrolled in that 8 am, or you just had to take that two hour nap, or you are finally going through a teen-angst phase, you skipped a class.

We’ve all been there, done that. It happens. Usually, the only cost is perhaps missing a few important notes. But what about the financial cost? Let’s break it down, in classic Berkeley-style.

For the academic year of 2017-2018, UC Berkeley reports that the cost of attendance for undergraduates is $34,400. That’s distributed as such: $14,068 for tuition and fees, $15,716 for room and board, $894 for books and supplies, $1,782 for personal, and $382 for transportation.

So, say the average Berkeley student takes 14 units a semester, meaning 28 units per year. That’s $502.43 per unit . If each class is 3-4 units, or an average of 3.5 units, then each class is $1,758.50.

Each class amounts to around 3 hours per week, and there are 14 weeks of instruction this semester (not counting breaks, dead week, or finals week) – that’s 42 hours per course, per semester. That brings us to $41.87 for each hour of class.

$41.87 may not seem like that much, but let’s put it in perspective:

That’s .4 Birkenstocks

Only one of your feet can be gloriously encased in the dense yet supportive foot bed.

That’s 21 Buds from happy hour at Kip’s 

Skip a class or get smashed? Your choice. Please don’t do both.

That’s 3.5 medium pizzas from Blondie’s

Go to that class- and with the money you save, reward yourself with a pizza coma.

That’s 16.7 ice cream sandwiches from CREAM

Is skipping a class really worth missing out on that much happiness?

That’s 22.6 tall coffees from Starbucks

Then you’d have enough energy to go to that class.

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