The Texas Legislature is going to come down on public university budgets next year, which will inevitably increase the cost of education. The University of Houston suggested to student leaders during the fourth annual Student Leadership Forum last week that Cougars can react by taking more credit hours and graduating within four years.
Easier said than done. UH Administration and Finance and Student Affairs started the forum with a quote from Hugh Roy Cullen that, interestingly enough, dealt with the cost of education.
“The University of Houston must always be a college for working men and women and their sons and daughters. If it were to be another rich man’s college, I wouldn’t be interested.”
The UH reps showed slides of budgets that spanned hundreds of pages and lasted for hours. There is not enough room in this editorial to even hit the tip of the budget iceberg, but Vice President for Administration and Finance Carl Carlucci had something interesting to say about how UH gets its state funding.
“Our (state) funding is not based on how many people we enroll, but how many credits you (students) take,” said Carlucci.
15 credit hours is the magic number. The more students who take 15 credit hours and graduate within four years, the better UH looks as a degree-granting public institution.
UH wants students to enroll in 15 credit hours per semester. In return, students lower costs by consolidating classes and not extending fees through endless semesters.
This is fine, but the average twenty-something working student who may have a kid at home only has so much time for school, not to mention the cost of attending a 15-credit semester. Khator says she is focused on student success, and graduating on time is the textbook definition, but UH also needs to remember what Roy Cullen said.
For more information on the UH budget, finances and other data, visit www.uh.edu/af/budget.
I saw this and just wanted to chime in…
I work full time in a pharmacy and go to school 12 hours in regular semesters and 6 hours over summer. The workload for a finance major (or any major for that matter) that wants their education to set them apart is already tough in most cases. Throw in a full time job (which btw are becoming harder and harder to find) and school becomes harder and harder. Im sure as hell not going to accelerate my education at both the expense of learning and my GPA just so this school can get more funding.
Secondly, this school really has to do some major cleanup when it comes to really optimizing student time in class and out of class. I could go on for days about how this school wastes students time and not to mention complicates things way more than what I consider reasonable. Everyone seems to be drinking the same juice about taking it on the chin but I cant stand it.
If UH seriously wants more students to take on additional hours, im not sure where they hope to create the extra hours in the day to do so. No teachers I have are yielding to lower course loads or easing up on their standards. Some dont even want to be here and you can pick up on it everday in class!!!! I think our graduation rate speaks for itself. There is something broken here and now to get more funding some admins think they will just turn us in to cattle and we will accept it. I dont see that happening. With the job market the way it is, im not accelerating anything. Im just fine right where I am at.
You know, I would love to take summer courses to get out quickly, but the classes I need to take–even ones that are required by EVERYBODY taking this particular sequence–are not offered during the summer.
I usually do 15 hours, but the scheduling choices this upcoming semester doesn’t make it work as far as I can see. Plus the classroom/tech fees are pretty darn ridiculous, especially when they add up for classes under the same building or degree type.