The Costs and Consequences of Excess Credit Hours

The growth of the public discourse on college completion and student debt has pushed policymakers and institutional leaders to implement a variety of policies aimed at incentivizing student completion.

This article examines state-adopted excess credit hour (ECH) policies on student completion and median debt outcomes.

The researchers find little evidence that enrolling in ECH positively affects student completion. However, they find that adoption of ECH policies increase median student debt. Students from marginalized backgrounds (i.e., first-generation and low-income) appear to be most adversely affected by ECH policies.

As states face constant pressures for resources, the adoption of tuition-based surcharges does not significantly alter student course-taking behaviors, rather shifts the cost burdens from the state to the individual student for perceived inefficiencies in students’ course-taking behaviors.