CSU lessens required units

By Jeff Dusing
Daily Forty-Niner

California State University officials are working to reduce unnecessary courses while retaining one of the highest student retention ratings in the country.

The graduation requirements will be reduced from 124 to 120 units, said Ken Swisher, spokesman for the Chancellor's Office.

With colleges and majors requiring different numbers of units to graduate, not all requirements will be reduced by the same amount, Swisher said.

Some majors, such as engineering, which currently requires 136 units to graduate, may be reduced by two or three courses, depending on what is found upon the CSU's review. To begin this process, the CSU system is examining approximately 4,000 student transcripts in an attempt to eliminate any unnecessary courses.

"We are looking at the major requirements to see if any classes are unnecessary," said Armando Contreras, executive assistant to CSULB President Robert Maxson. "We are trying to move our graduation percent from the 40s up into the 50s."

Students who graduate in more than six years are not taken into account when calculating graduation percentages, Contreras said.

The CSU's graduation rate matches the nation's most selective institutions, earning a 65 percent graduation rate for full- time students, yet only one fifth of CSU students attend school on a full-time basis, Swisher said.

Even with the impending reduction in workload, opinions differ as to where units should be reduced.

"What I don't like is the undergraduate, upper division [general education] requirements," said Kevin Gaston, a junior psychology major.  "I think that by the time you are a junior or a senior, your goals are pretty much focused and you know what you want to do. It is interesting, but it can actually take away from your major courses."

Although the class elimination process is underway, the courses will not be cut soon as reviews for unneeded courses will occur during the standard review of each major that occurs every five years, Swisher said.