Keene State Considers Incentives for Friday Morning Classes
In hopes of giving students a financial break and using the school's facilities more efficiently, Keene State College in New Hampshire is considering paying students to take early morning and Friday classes, the Equinox reports. "We are spending millions of dollars on these buildings, and...to utilize our buildings in the mornings and also on Fridays, we came up with the idea of maybe offering students a little bit of a break to get students to classes a little bit earlier during those days," said a student trustee. Keene State officials thus might join the University of Iowa in the quest to tame the push for more "thirsty Thursdays."
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Reader Comments
Okay, I agree...
I agree with Kevin from Indy...
If the school is offering students a discounted rate for signing up for courses offered in the early mornings and on Fridays, that helps the school and the students (or their parents depending on who is paying the bill).
When you look at it as incentives to take courses at those times and not paying students to show up at those times, it's completely different.
Universities in the real world ...
... schedule more classes and sections than will actually be filled with students. Were that not true, no one could complete a BA in four years -- the system has to have some excess capacity, if it's going to operate at all smoothly.
Students in the real world consider schedules, along with teachers and subject matter, when they pick courses. And students have a demonstrated pattern of avoiding both early mornings and Fridays.
Administrators in the real world need to find ways of increasing the efficient use of their most constrained resource, which is often classroom space.
And managers in the real world know that -- when motivating employees with intelligence, education, or both -- it's necessary to use carrots as well as sticks. Rely on the stick too much, your best students (who easily can) transfer out, your best prospects (who have many options) choose another school, your institutional reputation goes in the toilet, your alumni/donors get mad, and you get a chance to practice your job search skills.
Discounting is not Paying
Discounting classes is certainly not equivalent to paying students to attend those classes. The word used in the title of this post, "incentive," seems to be a much better description than the phrase ("paying students") used to link to the student newspaper article. Differential pricing, while complicated, may be a pretty good idea for institutions looking to ensure their resources are being effectively used.
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