Selected Examples of National Benchmarks by Carnegie Classification

Percent SCH and OCS by Faculty Category within Course Level

Table 1 presents the proportional distribution of student credit hours and organized class sections according to the type of faculty teaching them. The distributions are given independently by course level: undergraduate lower division, undergraduate upper division, total undergraduate and total graduate. Norms by faculty type are presented in the following tables:

Table 1A: Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty (example)
Table 1B: Other Regular Faculty (example)
Table 1C: Supplemental faculty
Table 1D: Teaching assistants who taught credit bearing courses
Table 1E: Teaching assistants who taught non-credit bearing course

Percent SCH and OCS by Course Level within Faculty Category

Table 2 presents the proportional distribution of student credit hours and organized class sections taught according to course level for the following faculty types:

Table 2A: Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty (example)
Table 2B: Other Regular Faculty

SCH, OCS, and FTE Students per FTE Faculty

Table 3 summarizes the fall term faculty workload using the average student credit hours, average organized class sections, and average FTE students taught1 per FTE instructional faculty as indicators. An FTE student is equivalent to 15 undergraduate student credit hours or 9 graduate student credit hours. These norms are given in the following tables by faculty type as well as for the all faculty combined:

Table 3A: Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty (example)
Table 3B: Other regular faculty
Table 3C: Supplemental faculty
Table 3D: Teaching assistants who taught credit bearing courses
Table 3E: Teaching assistants who taught non-credit bearing courses
Table 3F: All Faculty Combined (example)
Table 3G: Quartile Values for All Faculty (example)
presents the values at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile for total student credit hours, total organized class sections including laboratory sections,and FTE students taught per FTE instructional faculty for the total faculty. (Note: This table is not available in the institutional ratios tabulation.)

Important note for Tables 1-3: Disciplines that offer only a bachelors degree most often offer a few graduate level courses as well. In these disciplines, when the number of student credit hours taught is 10 or fewer or when the total graduate student credit hours taught is one percent or less than one percent of the total, the graduate student credit hours and their corresponding organized class sections were added to the corresponding upper division undergraduate counts. Treating the graduate level data as 'not applicable' provides more accurate norms.

Instructional Cost Ratios

Table 4 summarizes direct instructional costs per student credit hour and per FTE student taught using the total student credit hours generated during the academic year and the fiscal year expenditure data. An FTE student taught for semester academic calendar institutions is equivalent to 30 undergraduate student credit hours or 18 graduate student credit hours; that for quarter academic calendar institutions is 45 undergraduate or 27 graduate student credit hours. Personnel cost as percent of the total direct instructional cost is also presented.

Table 4A: Average Cost Ratios, Research and Public Service Expenditure (example)
Table 4B: Quartile Values for Cost Ratios
presents the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile for direct instructional cost per student credit hour and per FTE student taught and personnel cost as percent of total direct instructional cost. (Note: This table is not available in the institutional ratios tabulation.)

NOTE: Instructional cost ratios and personnel cost ratios as percent of total are given only for those disciplines in which data are reported by 5 or more institutions. Since some institutions participated only in the faculty workload section of the survey (Part A), faculty workload indicators for a discipline shown in Tables 1-3 may not have corresponding cost ratios in Table 4.