text: Although students like to deny it, procrastination controls a large portion of students' work ethic. Many students rely on schedules and due dates to stay on top of assignments and as encouragement to start working. However, many online courses are advertised as flexible and only contain one due date for when the entire course ends. Although it may seem like a blessing to manipulate scheduling and due dates, many students fall under the control of procrastination. Even in physical schools, students push off their assignments and projects to the last minute in order to play video games or hang out with friends, but as the due date falls closer, students employ the dread of a failing grade to kick start their work ethic. Supporters of online schooling may argue that procrastination is not a valid reason for disapproval in online schooling since both online and physical schooling produce procrastination. However, while physical schooling leads to small, short periods of procrastination, online schooling allows students to procrastinate the entire course over months. In addition, procrastination is increased with online schooling as the students' homes act as classrooms. There are numerous distractions and comforts (such as beds and pets) at a students' houses that encourage students to put off work that do not exist in a physical classroom. Suddenly, as the date for the course to end nears, students scramble to finish the work they put off for so long leading to sub par effort and work from the students. For example, high school students have extremely busy lives between classes, extracurriculars, and spending time with friends. If a high school student were to take an online course and did not receive any due dates except for the date the course ends, the student would have no stimuli to begin working on the course. This may seem like a gift at first because the student has more time to hang out with friends or study, but as the end of the course nears, there will be no time at all for studying or hanging out with friends. Online courses boast a flexible schedule, but it does more harm than good. Students push off working on assignments until the workload is too large and then panic to finish the material leaving behind less than average work.