According to HESI industry observations on course offerings of the institutions surveyed:
1.While overall course fill rates (Enrollment Ratio [enrollment divided by enrollment capacity]) are at a respectable level (78 percent) for the industry, this masks the fact that only 33 percent are “Balanced” (the percentage of unique courses offered that are balanced with student need [enrollment ratio between 70-95 percent]) with student demand for seats in those courses.
2.The largest group of courses are Under-filled (43 percent) (the percentage of courses that are under-filled relative to student need [enrollment ratio less than 70 percent]), leading to 19 percent of the sections in a typical schedule being unneeded relative to student course demand.
3.The remaining courses are “overloaded,” a problem, states the report, that’s so impactful that it perennially rates as the number one student challenge in the student satisfaction survey conducted each year by Ruffalo Noel Levitz.
4.Addition Candidates (the percentage of total sections in a schedule that could potentially be added to meet demand) are less than one-third the number of Efficiency (Reduction Candidates [sections that could potentially be removed from the schedule without negatively impacting student need] and Elimination Candidates [courses that could potentially be removed from the schedule as long as graduation requirements are not compromised]) Candidates in a typical schedule, meaning that most institutions have the capacity today to meet students’ course needs without additional faculty resources.
5.Given that over 13 percent of a typical course offering schedule is not needed (Efficiency Candidates less Addition Candidates), efficient schedules would greatly increase effective classroom capacity for most institutions. The report highlights that, nationally, over 10 percent of course schedules could feasibly be “recaptured” through management, for an annual impact of $14.7B—more than 10 percent of the $143B paid by students annually in tuition and fees.
Space Management Findings:
1.Most institutions feel and express that they are “out of space,” even though a typical classroom is in use less than half of the Standard Week Hours (the number of hours typically used in a scheduling week) and is only 62 percent full when in use.
2.A typical campus wastes over 15 percent of its classroom capacity due to Off-Grid Scheduling (the percentage of scheduling using non-standard meeting patterns) during Primetime (the number of hours that have significantly concentrated usage within the standard week). “With careful management, most campuses can reduce this number to less than 10 percent,” says the report, “creating over 5 percent ‘free’ classroom capacity (e.g., a campus with 100 classrooms effectively loses 15 classrooms of capacity, but could reduce this to 10 or fewer).”
3.While the industry widely compares classroom utilization statistics, there is a large variance in the number of Standard Week Hours on the various campuses measured (from 43 to 96).
4.Primetime Hours, with concentrated usage, are less than half of Standard Week Hours on a typical campus.
“An integrated approach to using data to inform scheduling of both courses and space frees the industry from the common misconception of limited capacity,” concludes the report.
Ad Astra hopes to expand research to focus on the credentials students pursue and the correlation between student-friendly schedules and improved student outcomes. Specifically, the company’s algorithms will examine factors that may contribute to program completion delays.
For more information on these findings, including methodology and individual case studies, read the full report, “The Higher Education Scheduling Index Report.”
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