Some colleges struggling to figure out how to manage overcrowded or empty courses could be looking for solutions in the wrong place.
A new report from Ad Astra Information Systems shows that the capacity issues some colleges are facing can be traced to the way they schedule classes. The company’s Higher Education Scheduling Index is a database that tracks how colleges allocate their faculty and classrooms to meet students’ course needs.
The report found that 36 percent of entry-level courses at four-year public institutions were "overloaded" with enrollments of 95 percent or more, which created "bottlenecks" that hindered students from graduating on time. The report also found that during peak hours, classroom utilization ranged from 63 percent at community colleges to 70 percent at public universities.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/10/28/capacity-problems-plaguing-colleges-may-be-due-poor-scheduling