TASP has overstepped its purpose

    It has been a very trying year for our country.

    With the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, threats of more attacks, fear of anthrax, violations of our rights and the war in Afghanistan, our lawmakers have found a problem that, apparently, rivals all these for their attention.

    The problem they have found is people being in college too long. Lawmakers in several states, including Texas, have decided that students should not take more than four years to earn a degree.

First, we should remember that usually anything that lawmakers think is a good idea is probably a very bad one.

    It seems that these lawmakers have lost touch with the concerns and problems many college students face today.

    Many “nontraditional students” attend TCC. These students are classified as older students who have just started college or are returning to college after a long hiatus. Many of these students are parents or full-time workers. They are attempting to learn while surviving.

    Should they be punished because they can afford to take only light course loads?

    Also, we are currently in a recession. Do we want to flood more people into a job market that is currently unable to supply jobs?

Lawmakers may be on the right track though. College careers sometimes take much longer than necessary. One of the main reasons is the TASP test.

    What started out as a placement test has turned into a nightmare. The TASP test keeps many students from graduating on time because it requires a student to pass certain classes that may or may not be in that student’s degree plans.

    TASP started as a tool to help students, but now it has become a prison, trapping students in college until they can escape its evil clutches.

    Why has this situation been allowed to fester for so long?

    The easy answer is bureaucratic red tape. Lawmakers think everyone should be categorized by test results.

    How many students would take math if they did not have to?             Probably not as many as are forced to take it.

    This emphasis on math also leads to the age-old question that students have asked over the years: “When will we use this in the real world?”

    The truth is most people will not use math higher than pre-algebra in the real world. Sure, many will argue that math is a valuable skill, but can anyone confidently say that graphing functions is useful at a 9-5 job?

    No, they cannot. And many other jobs and careers can be accomplished without advanced algebra.

    If lawmakers feel the need to make a change, then they should start by eliminating the TASP test.

    Doing so would probably lower the time it takes to graduate from college.

    Or lawmakers could keep the TASP test and require that all male students have full beards and women wear veils while they take their tests.

    Yes, we should get rid of the TASP test before the Taliban finds out how useful a tool it is in controlling people.