Learning to play a musical instrument should not be a college requirement for many reasons, including school budget and student interest.
It is not realistic to require students to take a course that will not provide them with basic knowledge or knowledge about their major. Students should be focusing on and spending their money on the current requirements for graduation or transfer and the courses related to their major.
It may be off-putting for students to be forced to take a course they are not interested in or have little to no skill in.
College is expensive enough with tuition/cost per unit, textbooks, parking and additional fees, and cost for equipment, and while many students receive some form of financial aid, the aid doesn’t always cover all costs and some students may not be receiving aid any aid at all.
According to the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) at Pierce, students are already required to take an arts and humanities course, which includes music appreciation and music history and literature. However, like with other subjects, students are free to choose which subject in particular interests them.
Students should feel comfortable and excited to take courses that will mean something to them and that they will have some interest in.
Forcing students to learn an instrument takes away the control of the student and doesn’t allow them the freedom to explore something they desire or are curious about.
College is all about choice and should continue to about exploration and discovery of one’s fascinations.
A fact sheet from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office website shows that, “One in every five community college students in the nation attends a California community college. With more than 2.1 million students on 114 campuses, the California Community Colleges is the largest system of higher education in the United States.”
This is not even including any 4-year universities in California or colleges across the nation.
That is a large number of students to force another requirement on.
There would need to be a large amount of funding to even make a mandatory music class a possibility to be available to all students.
Education is something that constantly suffers from budget cuts.
According to the California Community Colleges 2018-2019 Budget and Legislative Proposal, “Over the last 10 years, the colleges have experienced raising costs due to information technology to provide modern instruction, costs of modern equipment necessary for students to gain up-to-date skills and be competitive in the job market, higher utility bills and health care costs, campus security, and other expenses. Colleges do not have enough discretionary funding to cover these increasing costs which are essential to providing higher education in the 21st century.”
With this in mind, how will colleges find the funding to hire more teachers and purchase more equipment to accommodate millions of college students.
