Credit Load and Contact Hours

Credit Load 

In any given semester, the minimum credit load for a Graduate School of Business student who wishes to be considered full-time is 9 credits. Students who register for 6 credits or less are considered to be part-time. Immigration regulations require that students who wish to maintain their F-1 status be enrolled full-time and carry at least 9 credits (or their authorized equivalent) per semester.

Contact Hours

The standard unit for measuring a student’s course of study is the “semester hour.” For undergraduate classroom courses, one semester hour is equal to one academic hour (50 minutes) per week of classroom or direct faculty instruction and homework and assignments, (estimated as two hours of out-of-class work) over a fifteen-week semester, or the equivalent amount of work distributed over a different amount of time. University-level lecture courses are normally assigned one credit per semester hour. Generally, lecture courses that include laboratory assignments will include additional contact hours. 

For all GSB graduate courses, our time-on-task totals three (3) full-60-minute hours per week over a 13-week semester. Since, in graduate courses, the expectation for out-of-class work and research is enhanced, the ratio of in-class to out-of-class time may vary by program, with the total of approximately three hours of time-on-task-maintained.

In accord with academic practice, the Touro University will also award college credit for an equivalent amount of work as described above for other academic activities as established by the institution, including laboratory work, internships, practica, studio work, and other academic work leading to the award of credit hours. 

For students taking developmental courses that carry no credit, contact hours with the associated homework and preparations are used to determine full-time status for financial aid purposes in a fashion identical to that used in credit courses.