After two years of surging enrollment in Oregon’s state colleges, the Oregon University System is preparing for the worst. Anticipating that funding will become more limited at any time, OUS is considering other options to make up for the deficit without raising tuition too much.
The semester solution
After two years of surging enrollment in Oregon’s state colleges, the Oregon University System is preparing for the worst. Anticipating that funding will become more limited at any time, OUS is considering other options to make up for the deficit without raising tuition too much.
One solution that is being considered is to convert our academic calendar from quarters to semesters.
Declaring an “emergency” in the 2009 Oregon Legislation Session, Senate Bill 442 requires that the Joint Boards of Education run a study of the pros and cons of converting some or all state universities and colleges—including community colleges—to the semester school year while knowing that the initial change will be a high expense to reconfigure.
Why the consideration for conversion?
Apparently 89 percent of the country uses the semester academic calendar, allowing for easier transfers if one desires. The OUS has a list of “Merits of Semester vs. Quarter System” on their website, along with their other findings on converting to a semester school year, which was submitted on October 1, 2010. A second report is due on October 1, 2012 before any official decision is made.
Even though the pros for the semester change on the merit list outweigh the pros for quarters, I personally lean towards quarters and I have my reasons.
After making an impromptu decision to go back to school and finish my degree last winter, the major I selected requires that I earn my Bachelor of Arts, though my associate degree was geared toward a Bachelor of Science. Which means I have to either take two years of a foreign language or test out—and since it has been 10 years, I’ve lost most of the German language skills I gained in high school, leaving me with little chance to test out.
Therefore, I am taking the first year of my required language this summer to be caught up and ready to take my second year this fall so that I’m not taking classes for three years when I already have junior status. I don’t think it would be possible for me to graduate on my time schedule if we were on semesters.
A quarter system’s major pro-argument is flexibility. And in this day and age, when more and more people are returning to college due to lack of employment and/or advancement, flexibility is a must—especially if a person still has to make a living to do so. Add in Portland State’s unique community of students, which includes a rather wide age range, families and those who manage working with study, flexibility becomes an educational necessity.
Fortunately, when and if the change is made, it is estimated to have up to a three-year transition period. And, most likely, the system won’t begin changing until the 2013–14 school year, so we have plenty of time to wrap our heads around this semester idea.
If semesters are considered, Oregon’s universities will have to reorganize more than just their calendars—they will have the arduous challenge of reorganizing how students navigate through their schools, and college students will be forced to make the change for better or for worse.
Check out the OUS list of merits of semester vs. quarter system online:
www.ous.edu/state_board/jointb/sem/res.php
