The College Fix

I nearly blindsided a longboarder on my way to class as I read today’s Daily Wildcat article on common course numbering. (Protip: don’t read and walk). A quick summary: the Arizona Students Association called for identical identifiers between core courses at state universities and community colleges, the legislature passed a bill instructing the Board of Regents to figure out something among themselves, ABOR convened a committee, prepared a few cost estimates, and ultimately picked the cheapest option: creating a new, separate set of numbers to identify classes across Arizona colleges.  And what a deal it is. Watch out for rolling bros while you read this part, because you might be blindsided, too:

ASA used research from other institutions to recommend the common course numbering system, which would create a universal set of course prefixes and numbers throughout the state. For instance, an English 101 course would be identified the same way at all Arizona institutions.

Regents instead selected the Shared Unique Number system to implement, citing cost as their main concern. The common course numbering system would cost an estimated $67,059,931 to implement, while the estimated cost of the Shared Unique Number system is $4,689,053 to implement, according to an executive summary from the Arizona Board of Regents Academic Affairs Committee.

How much does it cost to get a room full of academics to agree to call first year English “Freshman composition?” About as much as Governor Brewer’s entire proposed budget cut for the University of Arizona—$67 million dollars.

Here’s how the Regents came up with that crazy cost, from their December Academic Affairs Committee report [pdf]:

It is estimated that the amount of university and community college faculty time required to perform all of the tasks involved with establishing a “Same Prefix, Number, Title” system is the equivalent of teaching one course for one semester for each of the 90 directly equivalent courses and one course for two semesters for each of the 114 non‐equivalent courses.  An estimate of the cost of faculty time was calculated in two ways: (1) using average faculty salaries as the cost of releasing faculty from their teaching responsibilities (In‐Kind contributions) and (2) using the average adjunct salary rates for the actual replacement cost to cover faculty release time.

The cheaper option requires just four additional meetings of the faculty groups overseeing each discipline, at a total time cost of $2,395,193.  These estimates may seem outrageous since they price in the opportunity cost of faculty time, but doing so is smart policy. Yet the underlying time cost is still troubling. Come on—a full semester’s teaching load to figure out if “Global Politics” at ASU is the same as “International Relations” at UA and rename it “Glonational Polations?” Either our professors are working a lot less than we thought, or we’re pissing away billions by bothering to hold office hours.

Last month, ASA released their own less-ludicrous estimate [pdf], citing similar programs in other states implemented for well under $1 million.  I don’t always agree with ASA, but common numbering seems to be common sense, even if its benefits are relatively modest and the program is phased in over time. ABOR’s estimate, on the other hand, is evidence of the uncommon cost and craziness of institutional change.

Connor Mendenhall blogs for the Arizona Desert Lamp. He is a contributor to the Student Free Press Association.

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