Credit Hour Policy and Compliance

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education expects all candidate and accredited institutions to demonstrate that they use acceptable and consistent methods for assigning credit hours to all courses and programs of study. The credit hour is defined by the U.S. Department of Education as a basic institutional measure of the level of instruction and academic rigor that establishes eligibility for federal funding.

Source: MSCHE Credit Hour Policy Effective August 23, 2012 Rev. October 30, 2012

(updated October 2018)

This policy documents the College’s adherence to federal, state and university guidelines for the application of credit hours to undergraduate and graduate courses. It explains the history of the credit-hour system within the College (and its precursors) and the current break-down of in-class contact hours and out-of-classroom work associated with various types of courses.

History of the College Course System and Credit Hours

The credit-hour policy for the College has been guided by basic principles established over 50 years ago. The Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences approved the transition to a four-course system from the previous five-course system in January 1961, with final guidelines on the new system distributed later that year. The rationale for the system was that fewer courses per semester allowed students to develop a deeper understanding of course material, including working independently to increase their knowledge in these topics. The Faculty approved the following statement outlining the approved approach for allocating credit hours to courses.

“The ordinary unit of undergraduate instruction in the College is the course, which is defined as consisting of a coherent body of academic material requiring approximately 25% of the working time of the student during one term. Lecture and discussion courses normally meet for three fifty-minute or two seventy-five minute periods each week with the equivalent of a fourth period being made up of enriched independent study, lecture, or discussion. Laboratory courses ordinarily involve four fifty-minute class periods or their equivalent in laboratory sessions each week. For purposes of recording, computing grade averages, and reporting to the State Education Department, each course shall normally be assigned four hours of credit. This definition shall ordinarily apply to all courses in the College numbered between 100 and 399” (January 20, 1961, emphasis added).

In 1968, the New York State Education Department formally registered all majors within the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering and Applied Science under this new system. As such, the College expected students to enroll in four, four-credit classes, or 16 credits total, per semester.

Course credit has evolved in the intervening period due to changes in the curriculum and the need for specialized courses. The standard course remains four credit hours, but the College has also introduced one- and two-credit courses in a variety of disciplines. These latter courses typically focus on applied skills (music, dance, student leadership opportunities) or relate to technical laboratory or workshop activities (CAD, micro-electric devices). In recent years, five- and six-credit courses have been also added to the curriculum in certain disciplines (chemistry, modern and classical languages). The increased credit hours for these courses reflect the additional student effort (inside and outside class) necessary for students to master this material.

Current Policy

The College continues to operate on a four-credit per course system as outlined above, with credit hours allocated based on the University credit hour policy. The University credit-hour policy follows United States Department of Education and New York State Education Department policies regarding credit hours (see Appendix B). These policies delineate the number of contacts hours and supplementary work required per credit hour.

Combined, these policies mandate that each credit hour consists of one hour of faculty-led instruction and two hours of out-of-class supplementary work per week throughout the semester. In the case of a two-credit course, for example, the course would have two hours of faculty-led instruction and four hours of supplementary work (readings, assignments, projects) every week, for six hours total each week. A four-credit course would double these amounts, with four hours of faculty-instruction and eight hours of supplementary work, for eight hours total. (Note that an “hour” of classroom-based instruction is defined as 50 minutes to allow for transit time between classes.)

In addition, these policies allow for “equivalent” academic activities to replace faculty-led instructional time. An equivalent academic activity can include formally defined activities such as recitations, studios and laboratory sessions; however, it may also include additional independent academic work completed outside of class in less structured settings. In this case, the faculty-led instructional time, equivalent instructional time and supplementary work must equal the hours per week associated with the course credit hours.

Supplementary student work refers to standard “homework” activities for students, which might include reading assignment, papers or essays, problem sets, group-work assignments, etc. Courses within the College utilize a combination of faculty-led instruction, equivalent academic activities, and supplementary student work to meet the credit hour policy. The chart below outlines the typical distribution instructional and supplementary work for courses by credit hour.

*For most courses, this will consist of a series of lectures provided in the classroom. These are based on a 50-minute “hour” as defined in the credit-hour policy.

**For laboratory-based courses, equivalent activities and out-of-class student work will be met in part through instructional time and/or independent work in the lab.