RIC OPC report proposes moving four-credit courses to three

Tim Yean & Brody Mendonca

Managing Editor & Sports Editor

(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) – Four-credit courses at Rhode Island College may be pushed down to just three credits, according to a PowerPoint presentation shared with RIC faculty earlier this week.

Sent to faculty by Interim Provost Dr. Valerie Endress, the 13-slide presentation on financial sustainability was made by RIC and done in cooperation with research by the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, the research arm of the Office of Postsecondary Education. The slides presented the college’s current status, actions the college is taking to improve its financial standing and future plans RIC will take.

In an email to The Anchor, Provost Endress says while a discussion is planned on the comparison between the four and three-credit course systems, no formal discussions nor proposals have been officially developed or adopted.

“Those are exactly the kinds of questions that a careful, inclusive process will need to work through,” Dr. Endress wrote.

The ‘next steps’ seen at the end of the slideshow are highlighted by the aforementioned idea to move current four-credit courses down to three credits.

What this could mean is that under the current academic system, which requires 12 credit hours to be considered a full-time student, students would need to take a fourth class to maintain their full-time eligibility if the three-credit system is developed and ultimately approved.

Flyer against the three-credit class system provided to The Anchor.

If the college advances on the new three-credit course plan, faculty may have to cut content from their curriculum, with class times decreasing by a half-hour in the current hour and 50-minute classes the four-credit courses operate on. Lab courses, some of which require more than the usual two-hour timeframe, would likely be affected the most by the shortening of class times. 

The potential move to three credits is cited as aligning RIC’s system with that of the Community College of Rhode Island and the University of Rhode Island, with CCRI in particular primarily offering three-credit courses. The move, the final slide says, would allow for “better alignment for transfer students and cohesion across pathways.”

The college has seen over 600 transfer students each year enter campus over the last two falls, per enrollment reports in 2025 and 2026, a little over half of the average of ‘first-time, full-time’ students, which each year eclipsed over 1,100 new students.

For students on or aiming to get on the Hope Scholarship, which requires 60 credits by junior year to be considered eligible, it could take a fifth class each semester in order to keep pace for the scholarship. The Hope Scholarship provides RIC students with a tuition-free final two years, so long as they are on pace to graduate in four years and they maintain a GPA above 2.5. 

Dr. Endress says however that any discussion will be “guided first and foremost by what is best for our students,” and that the college would not affect any student’s eligibility nor falter their progress.

“I hope your readers, and especially our current students and the high school students considering RIC, can take that assurance to heart,” Endress said.

The idea has seen heavy criticism from students. For first-year Devin Dumont, a 2020 high school graduate who came to Rhode Island College due to the Hope Scholarship following time in the military, he says the move would be a bad idea, telling The Anchor that a credit decrease would slow down progress toward the Hope Scholarship. For particular majors like early childhood education, Dumont says there are numerous classes under four credits already, which already makes the scholarship difficult to pursue.

“This does not take into consideration work, extracurricular activities, familial obligations, as well as commuting, which accounts for a significant portion of the population here,” Dumont said.

First-year Shayle Reyes Rodriguez is also against the potential system, crediting again the issue of an extra class making students’ workload more difficult.

“Everyone is busy, has their own thing going on,” Rodriguez told The Anchor. “Having to do more will be harder and might have a bad effect on grades.”

Will Francis, a first-year student athlete, has six hours of study hall as a part of his curriculum. An extra class, he says, would only strain his schedule.

“It is already tough fitting into my schedule,” Francis said. “Adding another class will leave me with little time for myself and make it hard to even complete the hours.”

Slide six regarding funding by the state to RIC (via RIC OPC Financial Sustainability Presentation)

A key aspect of the college’s financial strategy, as the PowerPoint alludes to, is “fiscal stewardship as a priority,” as set by the OPC. In 2025, 51% of Rhode Island College’s funding came from the Rhode Island General Assembly, with the rest coming from student tuition dollars. It is unclear if the mentioned three-credit system, alongside other ideas such as more flexible class formats and stackable credentials, will be cost-cutting moves.

The Anchor also reached out to both RIC President Dr. Jack Warner on the timeline and decision to propose a switch to the three-credit course system, but has not responded with a statement.

For now, it seems that a major shakeup on all levels of RIC academia could be on the way. Viewers with opinions on the three-credit course proposal can email managing@anchorweb.org.