Has UNH Been Misrepresenting Academic Credit-Hours for Decades? - Granite Grok

Has UNH Been Misrepresenting Academic Credit-Hours for Decades?

UNH Campus

Every Legislator in New Hampshire should or shall receive the letter below alleging  an ongoing misrepresentation of credit-hours by the University of New Hampshire. The letter and report assert that UNH gives extra credit hours compared to the actual amount of instruction and course work. Credit hours affect full-time status, completion of degree programs, grants and aid, and so on, so if true this would have serious repercussions.

Note: I have read the letter but not the report and am not substantiating any claims about the letter or the report by posting them. I am only making them available to the general public for consumption and discussion. Additional commentary will follow with regard to the details in the report once we have had the opportunity to review it.

Here is a link to a web site with the full report. You can also access the report here, and the PDF has been embedded below.

Dear Legislator, 

I am writing to you and all other New Hampshire Legislators to inform you of a substantial misrepresentation of credit-hours at and by the University of New Hampshire, at Durham and Manchester, and at and by Granite State College. I am also writing to suggest that a public investigation about the misrepresentation be initiated by the Legislature, and that a determination should be made as to whether or not UNH and the other institutions are acting contrary to New Hampshire’s laws and rules. 

The full details of the misrepresentation are contained in a report titled Report of forty-six years of substantial misrepresentation of credit-hours at and by the University of New Hampshire, which is available for viewing and printing at the website: www.misrepresentedcreditUNH.com; in addition to the report, the website contains support documents for everything reported in the report. 

The basic facts of the misrepresentation 

Throughout public higher education, one credit-hour is awarded per one hours’ worth of instruction and corresponding student work. In contrast, at UNH, about 70 percent of the time, 1.33 credit-hours are awarded per one hours’ worth of instruction and corresponding student work, and about 30 percent of the time, one credit-hour is awarded per one hours’ worth of instruction and corresponding student work. At UNH, a normal liberal arts course (non-EngineeringScienceMath) has three 50-minute class meetings per week over a 15-week semester, students complete a satisfactory amount of out-of-class work, and UNH awards 4 credit-hours at the end of the semester term. Three of the four credit-hours are awarded for the scheduled class and out-of-class work, and the forth credit-hour is awarded, not because of any extra work completed by students, but because UNH merely decided to increase the value of its normal liberal-arts 3 credit-hour courses to become 4 credit-hour courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, in the fall of 1969. 

Two main effects of UNH’s misrepresented credit-hour 

One, the educational attainments of UNH’s students are over-reported; when UNH reports that a student completes a 128 credit-hour degree program, the student actually completes not more than a 96 to 100 credit-hour program; this occurs for about 70 percent of UNH’s undergraduate students; and, completing about 96 to 100 credit-hours in a degree program is significantly below the at least 120 credit-hour degree program requirement established in public higher education. Additionally, there is an at least 12 credit-hour enrollment minimum for entitlement to State and Federal benefits, as well as for participation in other higher education aid-related programs; whenever UNH reports that a student is enrolled in 12 credit-hours, the student is normally enrolled in 9 credit-hours, which is less than the 12 credit-hour minimum. These internal effects and other external effects that result from UNH’s over-reported and miscalculated semester credit-hour are presented in Section I of the report. 

Two, by miscalculating and over-reporting its credit-hour, UNH is consequently enabled to account for the expense of delivering a full-time four-year 128 credit-hour program, all the while it actually delivers about 25 percent less than a 128 credit-hour program. In the same manner that UNH students are given credit for nothing, UNH receives revenue for a 128 credit-hour program, delivers an about 96 to 100 credit-hour program, accounts for the overall core expense of delivering a 128 credit-hour program, but all the while about 25 percent of that reported core expense is for nothing that UNH actually does, other than awarding credit for nothing.  

An exact accounting of UNH’s undelivered expense would require a rigorous, forensic accounting method that is beyond the scope of the report. However, an alternative and suitable method for estimating the costs that result from the undelivered portion of UNH’s programs is available by examining and analyzing National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS), Data Feedback Reports which include institutional calculations of core expenses per full-time equivalent (FTE) student enrollment. Using such methodology results in a cost estimate of $522 million for UNH’s undelivered education program for a period of seven Data Feedback Reports, 2007 through 2012 and 2014. A cost estimate for UNH’s undelivered education program since 1970, when UNH’s miscalculated and over-reported credit-hour was fully instituted, easily exceeds $2 billion. In addition to examining and analyzing these costs, other portions of the Data Feedback Reports are examined, analyzed and presented because their results (data) help to provide a better context of understanding the overall problem, as well as offering some reasons as to why it is occurring and persisting. The cost estimate and methodology are presented in Section III of the report. 

In addition to UNH miscalculating its credit-hour, two institutions, the University of New Hampshire at Manchester and Granite State College, both originally extensions of UNH, miscalculate their credit-hour in a similar manner. As such, it means that all of the effects of UNH’s miscalculated and over-reported credit-hour, as reported in the main report, also result from UNHM’s and GSC’s miscalculated and over-reported credit-hours. Details of their misrepresented credit-hours are presented in Appendix A of the report. 

UNH’s practice of awarding 4 credit-hours for 3 credit-hours’ worth of instruction and student work appears to exceed the authority granted to UNH by its charter 

The nature of UNH’s current practice of awarding 4 credit-hours for 3 credit-hours’ worth of instruction and student work arises from a committee’s decision to abandon the credit-hour system in 1967, the approval by its faculty to simply re-value 3 credit-hour courses to become 4 credit-hour courses, and the administration’s implementation of awarding 4 credit-hours for 3 credit-hours’ worth of instruction and student work in the fall of 1969. For some of its courses, UNH uses a standard award ratio of one credit-hour per one hour of instruction and corresponding student work completed over a semester; but for about 70 percent of its courses, UNH uses an award ratio of 1.33 credit-hours per one hour of instruction and corresponding student work completed over a semester.  

UNH’s charter stipulates that UNH’s “object” shall be: 

“to teach such branches of learning and to prosecute such researches as may be necessary and desirable in the education of youth and advancement and development of the arts, the sciences and the industries, including the education and training of teachers for the public school systems of the cities and towns of the state, and of such nature, scope and standard as usually prevail in the tax supported universities of the several states.”

No tax supported university, of any other state, awards credit-hours of such nature and standard as UNH does. Accordingly, UNH’s practice of awarding 4 credit-hours for 3 credit-hours’ worth of instruction and student work appears to exceed the authority granted to UNH by its charter. Because of the nature, duration, circumstances, and wide-ranging and grave effects of UNH’s miscalculated and over-reported credit-hour, serious consideration and deliberations regarding the revocation of UNH’s charter should be undertaken by the State of New Hampshire. 

The full text of UNH’s charter follows, as established in New Hampshire’s Title XV Education, Chapter 187-A, State College and University System, University System, University of New Hampshire, Section 187-A:3. 

187-A:3 University of New Hampshire. – A university is established and made a body politic and corporate, by the name of the “University of New Hampshire”, the object of which shall be to teach such branches of learning and to prosecute such researches as may be necessary and desirable in the education of youth and advancement and development of the arts, the sciences and the industries, including the education and training of teachers for the public school systems of the cities and towns of the state, and of such nature, scope and standard as usually prevail in the tax supported universities of the several states. Such university is authorized to grant and confer in the name of the university of New Hampshire all such degrees, literary titles, honors and distinctions as other universities may of right do including associate, baccalaureate, master’s and doctor’s degrees. The trustees of said university are further authorized to define and prescribe the standard, scope and nature of the instruction and attainments necessary in order to qualify for such degrees, titles, honors and distinctions and to issue such bulletins, announcements and reports as may be found necessary or desirable in publishing and defining the standard, scope, quality and nature of the educational work of the corporation.

In addition to the actions from 1967 through 1969 regarding UNH’s credit-hour, the faculty and president of UNH provided the following statement to USNH’s trustees at an Educational Policy Committee meeting on October 18, 1969: “The faculty sets the requirements for the degrees offered in course, determines when the requirements have been met, and authorizes the president and board to grant the degrees thus achieved” [Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, American Association of University Professors, American Council on Education and Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges; as published in the AAUP Bulletin, Winter 1966].  

A thorough review of the record fails to show any indication that the USNH trustees define and prescribe the standard, scope and nature of the instruction and attainments necessary in order to qualify for such degrees, titles, honors and distinctions or define the standard, scope, quality and nature of the educational work of any of its institutions. UNH’s, UNHM’s and GSC’s practice of awarding 4 credit-hours for 3 credit-hours’ worth of instruction and student work appears to be based on the apparent authority of a committee that had no actual authority at all. 

I do hope you will give serious consideration to both the report and the conditions at UNH, UNHM and GSC; they pose grave if not catastrophic consequences for students, the institutions, the University System of New Hampshire and the State.

Respectfully, 

Lawrence F. Warhall Jr.

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