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More than a century ago, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie wrote a $10 million check to create a pension system for college professors. Colleges and universities that participated in the system were required to adopt basic standards for facilities, admissions criteria, staffing, and academics. Thus was born the Carnegie Unit, better known now as the credit hour. It was created as a way to ensure that students received consistent amounts of instructional time.

Many educators now feel that the Carnegie Unit is an outdated tool to assess academic progress. They point out that it was never meant to measure what students learn. More importantly, they argue that focusing on the hours students spend in the classroom rather than their mastery of the course material masks the quality of their academic progress and actually discourages learning.

We support a thorough review of the Carnegie Unit and applaud the work of Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile. We also laud the many institutions trying new approaches, as well as the state and regional regulatory agencies enabling this experimentation.

We agree that relying on the credit hour hinders reforms that are needed to improve the assessment of students’ work and that of institutions. Federal financial aid rules, for instance, sometimes force colleges and universities to use the Carnegie Unit to measure academic advancement and limit innovations in higher education.

But we also offer this note of caution: Reforming American higher education is a complex undertaking with myriad stakeholders. We cannot simply blow it up and start over.

The sudden elimination of the Carnegie Unit would wrench the system. It would make it almost impossible for institutions, students, educators, and administrators to function efficiently. For the moment, the Carnegie Unit provides a common language to organize the work of schooling and communicate student accomplishments.

So we must make that change wisely. Educators and policymakers must systematically test new learning standards, high-quality assessments, and accountability models. Those new approaches must focus more closely on student learning. They must explore not only which innovations work, but for whom and in what circumstances.