We’ve been talking a lot about the changes here at Kent State University this summer and this time, on the eve of the new semester, students may have reason to applaud Kent State administrators.

This academic year, the university’s curriculum, both for its graduate and undergraduate tracks, is being streamlined. Both the new Kent Core and the consolidation of the university’s three graduate schools are meant to simplify the curriculum, shortening the length of time students spend at Kent State and help students avoid redundancies in their education.

Only time will tell how effective these new initiatives will be. Kent Core will replace the Liberal Education Requirements as the new mandatory group of courses that students will take during their time at Kent State. Faculty Senate originally proposed the changes to the undergraduate curriculum. Meanwhile, university officials cited organizational reasons for combining its three graduate schools, even creating a Graduate Education Task Force to examine problems in graduate education.

These are steps in the right direction for Kent State. With the ever-rising cost of higher education, it’s crucial for university officials to take a hard look at inefficiencies in education.

Streamlining processes, standardizing requirements across the various disciplines and degrees may also add transparency as to what is required of students pursuing these degrees. We’ll applaud this move as it makes our lives easier while at Kent State.

Coming right along with all of this will be a new trend in education. As a result of this move (we hope), students may be able to go across disciplines much easier. Graduate students especially did not always find that easy to do.

Moving forward, we hope educators at Kent State will continue to find ways to make students’ education more effective by cutting some unnecessary requirements and making education more career and skill specific. Because while a liberal arts foundation is essential to a college education, overloading students — who are already overwhelmed and over paying — is, simply put, a waste of time.

The above is a consensus of the Summer Kent Stater editorial board.