Should College Have One Attendance Policy for All Departments?

The college should have one attendance policy for all departments.

Attendance policy is strange things, and perhaps the strangest thing about them is how often they completely differ from one another. There is no college – wide attendance policy that students must follow, but many departments create their own. Some departments have strict attendance policies, but many times the policy is whatever the professor feels like. I think the college should adopt a more uniform attendance policy for several reasons.
First of all, the lack of uniformity can be mind – boggling for student. Attendance policy varies a lot between professors. Some professors don’t enforce these policies; many make up their own and put it in their syllabus. It’s not uncommon for a gen-ed to have a strict attendance policy while an important course for student’s major has a very lenient one. It’s obviously more important that the student attend the major course, but he or she only faces consequences if the gen-ed is missed.
Second of all, many department policies are not enforced by professors. This is worse than not having a policy in the first place. How are students supposed to take showing up to class seriously if their teachers don’t?
Another reason, attendance policies do not do a good job of reflecting the importance of a class. Furthermore the inconsistent attitudes professors have towards them are confusing to student. Therefore, when faces with so many varying opinions on the importance or unimportance of attendance policies, students lose the basic point. However, every student should attend all classes. Not only are professor there to teach you in the first place, you paid to learn. Not going to class is essentially throwing money away while pretending to be a student.
In short, attendance policy at college should be changed in order to be more consistent. Either do away with policies altogether and let the students face the long-term consequences of their actions, or find a policy every professor in the department will stand behind and enforce.