Can professor drop me from their class? (one answers)

Yes, a professor can drop you from their class, but it is usually up to the student to withdraw from the class and professors will need to complete a lot of additional paperwork to do it themselves.

But universities can drop students at the administrative level.

Where I worked, our college did NOT allow professors to drop students. It was always the student’s responsibility UNLESS the student never attended class. So some universities do not give the professor any authority to kick a student out of their class.

I will explain that later in this article, but there are some rare exceptions where professors can drop students but usually it isn’t the case. The college has to initiate this process instead.

A professor MAY have the power to drop a student from their course but most colleges don’t let professors have that authority. It is usually an administrative decision or the student’s responsibility to drop the class.

Can a college drop you from class?

Yes, colleges can drop students from class but this is typically used in situations where students never attended the class to begin with or in situations where students got in trouble with the college by violating their code of conduct.

The university, where I worked, would have professors report all students who hadn’t attended by a certain date. This was usually two weeks into the semester. If the student never showed up, we reported their name to the college as required.

The college could drop the student if they were using any financial aid. I think this all had to do with getting back the financial aid that was used on courses students never planned to attend.

Another reason why a college might kick a student out of class is if the student is committing a code of conduct violation.

I have seen some students get kicked out of my classes, by the college, for the behavior on campus. And they weren’t eligible to return. This is super rare, but can totally happen.

They might also drop a student from a course if the student doesn’t pay the tuition.

Some colleges will let students stay enrolled for a little bit, until financial aid goes through, but if it doesn’t happen pretty quickly, the college is going to drop the student from the course for nonpayment.

Another reason why students might get dropped if is the college class gets cancelled. This actually happens a lot more than students think. Colleges might cancel classes, at the last minute, if it didn’t have enough students in it or there was a staffing issue.

It can totally suck to get dropped from a college course, especially without notice, but there might be a chance you can get back in if you act fast.

How to avoid getting dropped from a college class

Attend the course early in the semester

Make sure you attend the VERY FIRST class day because this is when a college might drop you. The college wants to give other students, on the waitlist, an opportunity to attend the class so they might drop students who don’t attend the first class day. If it’s an online class, complete an assignment to be counted for attendance.

Read your student handbook

Your student handbook might outline reasons why they conduct administrative or instructor approved drops. For example, Pasadena College says that they may drop students for bad behavior or not meeting the prerequisites for the course.

Pay cash for the course

If you have financial aid, and it hasn’t gone through yet, you might get dropped from the class if the semester has started. Or if you don’t attend class by the census date, the college might kick you out of the class. But this may be avoided if you just pay cash for the class instead.

Check the enrollment

If a college class doesn’t have very many students in it, the college might cancel the class. So it is always best to see if you can find out the class enrollment (usually visible on the schedule of classes) and see if there are more than 9 students. If not, the class COULD get canceled. This depends on a lot of factors, but it is best to have a backup plan.

Complete all prerequisites

Some courses require students to take other classes before enrolling or the student must complete certain testing procedures before enrolling in a course. Sometimes you might get into a class but didn’t complete these prerequisites. In this case, you could get dropped from the class when the college finds out.

What happens if you get dropped from a college class?

If you got dropped from a class, you need to determine what the reason is so you can figure out if there is any recourse and if you can get back into the class.

Most often, you aren’t going to be able to get back in the course but it will entirely depend on why you got kicked out and when it happened.

For example, one of my students got dropped for nonpayment because of an issue with their financial aid. She quickly fixed the problem, paid for her classes, and the college made an exception to let her re-enroll.

However, if too much time passes, the professor won’t let you back in because you missed too much lecture. I recommend fixing the situation within a few days.

But in most circumstances, if you got dropped, there probably isn’t much of an opportunity to get back into the course.

Once you are dropped from the class, you need to take immediate action. Most colleges won’t allow you to continue attending class so you need to contact your professor and let them know your situation.

Then, contact the registrar and your academic advisor. Find out why they dropped you and try to fix everything as quickly as possible. But sometimes the situation can’t be fixed and you won’t be able to get back into the course.

You will have to wait until the class is offered again.

It is possible, depending on why you got dropped, for the college could see if there is another section of the course you could enroll in but this is only going to in a rare instances like getting dropped because the class got canceled.

So, while you can get dropped from a class, it is usually because the college made the decision not the professor dropping you themselves.

College policies vary and each university gets to pick their own policies and has broad discretion. This is especially true for private universities. Make sure you read the college’s handbook to find out why they kick students from classes.

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