Again, right on the money.
In my classes this semester, i had a few students who could comfortably slot into a senior research seminar or even a graduate seminar at an elite private university. I had other students—more than a few—who weren’t ready for Grade 10.
Apart from demonstrating the wide range of abilities in the CSU system, this discrepancy also has some detrimental effects on teaching. If you teach to the level of the best students, you’ll end up leaving behind a significant (i.e., considerably more than half) portion of the class. If you teach to the bottom, the rest barely get an education at all, and the best students get bored out of their mind. It can be quite a balancing act.
There’s another workload-related issue, but one that focuses on the students themselves rather than on the teachers, and it’s something that is a result of the way in which the CSU fee structure is organized.
Students in the CSU system pay either a part-time fee or a full-time fee. The part time fee, for 6 units or fewer per term, is $2,454 per academic year. The full-time fee, for students in more than 6 units per term, is $4,230 per academic year. Cite (Figures are for 2010-2011; they will almost certainly be higher, possibly much higher, in 2011-2012.)
Most CSU degrees require about 120 units to graduate, meaning that, if you want to graduate in 4 years, you need 15 units per semester over the 4 years of the degree. That five 3-unit classes per semester (most, but not all, classes are 3 units).
The fee structure means that you pay exactly the same amount in fees for taking 3 classes (9 units) per semester as you do for taking 18 units (6 classes) per semester). Recognizing this, many students sign up for as many classes as possible, trying to cram their degrees into a shorter period of time and thus save themselves money. It is, at one level, a perfectly rational economic decision.
The problem is that many of these students work, have other outside obligations, or simply are not smart enough nor sufficiently prepared to cope with 6 proper university courses at one time. As a consequence, students who take on an excessive workload often fail one or more of their classes, and have to take them again.
Now, you might say, “So what? It’s only their own money that they’re wasting,” but that’s not the whole story. A significant chunk of these students’ education is subsidized by the taxpayers, so every time a student fails a class and has to take it again, it costs the student more money and it costs the taxpayer more money. Moreover, in a time of budget cuts and class reductions and full classes, every student who fails a class and has to enroll in it again is effectively taking a seat from a student who also needs the class. In the long run, the attempt to cram in more classes each semester ends up costing the student and the state more money, and also makes life more difficult for students and instructors in a system where class space it at a premium.
I had a student this semester taking 18 units, or 6 classes. Of those 6 classes, 4 were upper-division history classes. Of those, 1 was a capstone research seminar requiring lots of reading and a major research paper. All his other history classes also required quite a lot of reading, as well as research papers. This is simply too much for all but the most capable and committed students.
The student did poorly in my class, mainly, i believe, because his workload was just too great and something had to give. Now, because my class was part of his major and his grade in the class wasn’t good enough, he’ll have to take another equivalent class, costing himself and the California taxpayers more money, and taking up a seat that could have gone to someone else.
I think the CSU system should charge its fees on a per-unit basis. So, if you take 18 units, it should cost you twice as much as if you take 9 units. If you’re taking 15 units, and want to add another class to make it 18, then you need to pay more money. That way, students will think twice before tacking another class onto an already-full schedule. At the very least, the university needs to be far more rigorous in setting limits on the number of units students can take at one time.