Dive Brief:
- A new report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching affirms the value of the Carnegie Unit, otherwise known as the credit hour, for setting minimum standards in college education, concluding that it will continue being used until a better standard is developed.
- According to the report, "The Carnegie Unit: A Century-Old Standard in a Changing Education Landscape," the credit hour does present perceived problems with its use in allocating financial aid, developing courses with alternative pacing, and with certain education innovations.
- The authors of the report believe that rules about allocating federal financial aid should allow for experimentation with different ways of using and counting credit hours, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
Dive Insight:
The credit hour is involved in one of the main sticking points with competency-based education: How can a higher education institution measure the amount of education delivered when the student’s progress is measured by competencies mastered, not time spent in the classroom? And how should taxpayers help fund that education if it’s not measured in credit hours?
Western Governors University is held up as an example of how to get around the credit hour issue when running a competency-based education model. The university uses “competency units” that students earn as they advance, and those units are used to track their progress and eligibility for federal financial aid.