Carnegie Unit

Developed in 1906, the Carnegie Unit measures the time a student has studied a subject in the U.S. secondary and postsecondary education system. It was originally conceived to translate high school work into equivalencies for the purpose of college admission: Students earn one unit of high school credit upon completing 120 hours in one subject, accumulated in four or five meetings a week for 40 to 60 minutes for 36 to 40 weeks each year. Fourteen units constitute minimum high school preparation.

The early decades of the 20th century were a period of massive expansion of high school populations, creating a good deal of articulation about the mission of the high school and its curriculum and increasing numbers of applicants for postsecondary education. National standards for high school curriculum and college entrance requirements became necessary not only to help high schools adequately prepare their students for college-level work, but also to help colleges evaluate the increasingly large pool of applicants who had studied a wide range of high school curricula. In the 1890s, the National Education Association (NEA) appointed the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies, chaired by Charles Eliot of Harvard University, and the Committee on College Requirements to address these issues. Reports presented by these groups laid the foundation for standardizing high school curricula across the country. In 1894, the NEA indicated that every academic subject taught in a secondary school should be calibrated in course units based on contact hours and taught to the same extent to every student. Student learning was measured in terms of time spent in class on the standard curriculum. Thus, for all students who studied history, Latin, or algebra, for example, the allocation of time and the method of instruction were to be the same. The standard curriculum was provided to all students in spite of their individual educational desires or interests, and all academic subjects were to be regarded equally for admission to colleges and universities. The Carnegie Unit was designed to increase transferability of students and credits throughout the United States.

Although the Carnegie Foundation did not develop the idea of the unit, the foundation was instrumental in its widespread acceptance. When the foundation was established in 1906, Andrew Carnegie donated $10 million to provide pensions for professors, announcing that any college failing to adhere to the definition set down by the Carnegie Foundation, in other words, requiring less than the usual 4 years of academic or high school preparation [Page 103]in addition to the preacademic or grammar school studies, would not receive retirement allowances for its professors. Because few colleges at the time had their own pension programs or annuity funds, the unit was quickly accepted in both colleges and high schools. By 1910, almost all high schools measured course work by the Carnegie Unit. Predictably, an increasing number of high schools followed the standardized unit, altering their curriculum and graduation requirements to ensure their students' admission into colleges and universities.

The Carnegie Unit has shaped major issues in U.S. secondary and postsecondary curricula and the conditions for federal-level funding, accreditation, and the accountability of educational institutions (e.g., the government requires institutions to maintain standard academic calendars built on credit or clock hours). The Carnegie Unit has continuously influenced the U.S. education system, coinciding with increasing enrollments for postsecondary education; a standardized curriculum that all students learn to a common standard; correlation of high school graduation requirements with college admission standards; pressure for public accountability, institutional efficiency, and productivity; student transfer and mobility; standardization of online and distance education; and attention to the standardized integrity of the overall curriculum.

...