To Help Students Graduate On Time, Tennessee Colleges May Change Their Pricing Structure

The board that oversees most of the colleges in the state is again discussing how it charges students for classes. The Tennessee Board of Regents wants to encourage students to take more credit hours— without reverting a decision it made in 2009. 

Back then, students only paid up to 12 credit hours — about four classes. Any additional classes would be free.

TBR decided that pricing structure was unfair to part-time students, because they were basically subsidizing the full-timers who took extra courses for no charge. So it started charging students extra to take those fifth and sixth classes.

But there was an unintended consequence to that change, officials say: Because of the cost, many students have simply stopped enrolling in more than 12 hours a semester. That means they’re taking longer to graduate, says TBR chancellor John Morgan.

“In order for a student to get a two-year degree in two years, or a four-year degree in four years, they really have to take 15 hours a semester,” he says.

Research also shows that the longer students stay in college, the more likely they are to drop out, a TBR official said during a recent finance committee meeting. 

So the system is considering making that fifth class free again, in hopes of encouraging students to take 15 credit hours. But this would shift some of the cost back to part-time students.

The finance committee is in the early stages of discussing this change, Morgan says, and a decision will likely not be made this year.