Should You Skip Class? Ask a Calculator

(MoneyWatch)  My daughter and I bumped into a couple of her former high school classmates at Target one afternoon and she asked the two girls what they thought of San Diego State University, which is where they attend school.

I'll never forget their enthusiastic response. They said they loved San Diego State because they could cut classes and nobody would know.

I doubt that's the sort of endorsement that any university would appreciate, but skipping classes has probably been going on since college existed.

For all those students out there who regularly struggle with whether they should ditch a class, there is now an online calculator that can help them decide. (What would we do without the Internet?)

The Skip Class Calculator claims that it can help a student decide whether ditching a class is a smart move.

To use the Skip Class Calculator, all you have to do is provide answers to 10 questions. Here are some of the questions:

• How many times a week do you have class?
• How many days have you already skipped?
• What is your current grade in the class?
• What is the date of your next major quiz or test?

After a student answers these questions, the calculator spits out a verdict based on what the website calls a "surefire mathematical formula."

The calculator is the brain child of Jim Filbert, a new college grad, who came up with the idea in February. Here's how he tells it:

I woke up one cold morning and debated whether or not I wanted to get out of bed to go to class. I ran the risk in my head. Then I pondered. I was wondering if there might already be a tool on the interwebs which would run that risk for me. After a few minutes of searching I found nothing -- so I decided it was up to me to create. I ended up skipping class that day because I was too excited about the idea.
So far 20,924 students have used the calculator. I have to wonder what kind of grade point averages these kids have got.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes for TheCollegeSolutionBlog.
Skipping class image by Shaylor. CC 2.0.