Sarah has always loved robots, so when she was accepted to a good college with a solid engineering program, she was so excited to study robotics! I came here to two bubblegum and build robots, and I'm all out of bubblegum. But when it came time to register for classes, she realized she had to take at least 16 general education classes, and three free electives in order to get her bachelor's degree in engineering. Wait, what? To learn about robots, I have to take the textual appeal of Tupac Shakur? That's just one example of the interesting college courses that are available, some of which students have to take, regardless of their major or what they want to do. Remind me again why I have to take four or five semesters worth of fluff classes? As it's an your professor, I can attest that a well-rounded student is a good student. Also, I need to justify my existence here. But I just want to build robots! De-mystifying the hipster doesn't help me with that. Forget this nonsense, I'll teach myself. No, knowledge can only come from on high! Sorry, dude! Free online courses and YouTube tutorials cost a lot less than taking classes I don't need. General education course requirements are just one of the reasons that the cost of college tuition is so high. Forcing students to take classes that aren't actually relevant to their degree keeps students enrolled longer, and creates an artificial demand for an over-inflated supply. Combine that with an ever-expanding administrative staff to accommodate regulations and cushy amenities, and tuition prices just keep going up. It's no wonder so many college grads are struggling with their student loans. Tell me about it. The average individual student loan debt in 2012 was $25,550 for public colleges and $32,300 for private ones. Oh! Thanks, Genbot! Relaxing general education requirements would probably help reduce college tuition prices. Not to mention, prospective students opting out of big academia altogether to use alternate forms of education, like Sarah here. By the way, Sarah, it's a pretty nice robot you built. Thanks! Wait, I am a robot? Hey folks, thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this, please check out fee.org for more educational content. Thank you!