Kennesaw State creates difficulty for students to achieve their best college experience with limitations on credit hours.
Currently, students at KSU are limited to only 18 credit hours during the Fall and Spring semesters, according to KSU’s academic policies. Additionally, only 13 credit hours are allowed during the summer semester.
Allowing so few credit hours make it difficult for students to get the maximum benefit out of their years at school.
Universities claim that putting limitations in place is for the best interest of students, according to the Washington Post. KSU’s course catalog indicates students with under a 3.5 GPA are given credit limitations, leading many to believe the school has the intention of giving students a more manageable course load.
This is not the case when KSU’s credit cap has the potential to require students to stretch their course schedule into as many semesters as possible in order to make more revenue in tuition and fees.
It is more cost-effective to enroll in more classes during a single semester than to remain a student for a longer amount of time, despite that fees are equivalent to all students taking at least five credit hours, according to KSU’s 2019-20 report on tuition and fees.
The credit cap leads KSU students to believe that credit hour limitations ease the load and stress level of students, according to KSU’s academic policies. While this may be reasonable on the surface, enrollment decisions should be made by the students responsible for paying and completing their coursework.
Summer semesters are unique situations as well — they allow for the lowest number of credit hours despite the possibility to take a full load with no more than two classes being active at one time.
A student could take two classes in the Maymester, two classes in the first four-week session and two classes in the second four-week session. This would result in 18 credit hours worth classes being taken in one summer semester without being overwhelmed.
However, KSU’s current limit of 13 hours during the summer prevents this full-load opportunity.
While some students may have a job or family responsibilities that may cause them to elect to take 15 credit hours, every student is different. A student who does not have such responsibilities may have the time to take upward of 21 credit hours — currently impossible without filing a special request with the KSU Registrar.
“I definitely would have taken more [classes] when I still had general education classes,” junior art education major Ashlyn Strickland said.
Some students have fallen behind their initial graduation date and want to catch up on their credit hours, as there are 7.4 million college students over the age of 25, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. It is very difficult for these students to catch up under the current limitations at KSU.
With a limitation on credit hours, students cannot opt to take more classes to push up the date of their graduation. Therefore, students are prevented from starting their careers sooner.
KSU appears as if they are putting the needs of the students first with these limitations. However, the university is actually holding students back in doing so while also maximizing profit as a result of more semesters being required for graduation. KSU should remove its limits on credit hours so that students can make the most of their college careers.