“One is struck in any such study of collegiate conditions with the absence of any gauge of efficiency which even remotely resembles, for instance, profits in an industrial undertaking. Anyone investing money in a business may with some reason be rather care-free as to the manner in which that business is administered, because at the end of any given period he has an opportunity of judging the management by the profits earned on his investment. In the same way, a man who is at the head of a business can devote much or little time to the supervision of any one department with the thought that at a given date the books will be closed and the management of that department will be fairly accurately reflected in the excess of receipts over costs.
One looks in vain for anything analogous to this in education, and after the larger question of the type of management has been determined, perhaps next in importance is to get some gauge or measure which can be used as a means of comparing the work of one department with another inside of the same institution; and the work of similar departments in two institutions, and in fact of one institution as a whole with the work of another. Any such basis of comparison that might be adopted now would probably have to be the student credit-hour.
By a student credit-hour is meant one hour of lectures, of laboratory work, or recitation room work, for a single pupil. Thus, a section of thirty students on a three hours’ laboratory period would mean ninety student credit-hours. A section often pupils in a one hour recitation would mean ten student credit-hours. This seems to afford a unit which can be used for a great many different purposes. With this as a basis, we can get some tally on the efficiency with which the buildings are operated, the cost of undergraduate teaching, and each of several other items which go to make up the expenses of a university. Little or no value will attach to the student credit-hour as a means of gauging the cost of research teaching. It is believed that the student credit-hour will be found to be a valuable gauge for collegiate effort even where cost is not involved. The use of the student credit-hour will be further developed under the head of financial administration.
Without question, after the student credit-hour has been used for a period, various methods will suggest themselves whereby it can be made more serviceable as a unit, or other units better adapted to the purpose will be proposed.
The student credit-hour can be used in some places by weighting it, where otherwise it would have little value. Thus, in discussions of what should constitute a term’s work for a teacher, one lecture hour would probably count as the equivalent of two or three laboratory hours. The adoption of some unit, even though it is not any more generally satisfactory than the student credit-hour, will quickly lead to many standards now much needed. I was able to discover, for instance, no very generally accepted relation between the arduousness of laboratory, lecture-room and recitation-room work, either for pupil or instructor. It would seem that some working rule in this matter would be almost necessary in apportioning work between the various teachers in a department.
In judging costs especially, it will be necessary to take into consideration the different grades of student credit-hours. Thus, elementary work will always cost less than the more advanced principally because of the relatively larger sections. A school having a large number of graduate students would, other things being equal, of course show higher student credit-hour costs.
The great advantage of the student credit-hour is that it is small enough to get inside of all the various combinations of courses, schools, departments, etc. The studenthour will be as full of meaning when it is used for keeping costs of a college of engineering including any number of departments or courses, as it will be in keeping the cost of a single lecture course.
Deep Thoughts on Higher Ed 