Grades too dependent on finals

How many times have you seen this on your class syllabus? Your grade is broken down on the paper into segments like this: Attendance is 10%, Homework is 20%, Tests are 20%, the final term paper equates to roughly 50%. I respect the goal of instructors and universities to make students better rounded regarding their ability to perform the tasks of a certain field but I simply do not understand the purpose served by hideously unbalancing the weighted grades calculated into the final grades. If anything, such a practice seems rather contradictory to such a goal.

I have seen heavy flaw in this system far too often to believe its purpose can be justified. If a student shows up to class on time every day, consistently turns out high quality work and holds a solid test average, why should their grade dip from a solid A to just above the failing line on the off chance that scheduling conflict prevented the final essay, which must be turned in on time with no exceptions, from being delivered on the final day of class?

Meanwhile, while the hard workers are left to wonder what went so horribly wrong, every class has more than their fair share of lazy students that managed to just barely scrape up a final grade of a C. This happens despite them turning in intentionally rushed work of significantly lower quality and skipping several days of class.

Thus the hardworking student is left with a significantly lower GPA than his far less determined counterpart. This casts inaccuracy on the idea that a higher student's grade point average is indicative of their level of contribution to the school.

By weighing grades so heavily, grading policies do not simply harm the misfortunate, but they also give less incentive to work hard or show up to class. I understand that such projects should have greater ramifications than ordinary work but it seems rather unfair that a single category should be able to undo all of the hard work that went into every other aspect of the learning experience.

In life, it's not simply skills and capabilities that open work opportunities but also one's own outlook and attitude toward the job. If the purpose of education is to prepare us for the real world and the real world is not black and white, then I see absolutely no reason why grades should be such an all-or-nothing proposition.