Carnegie unit

noun

Education.

1. a standardized unit of measurement for evaluating courses in secondary schools in terms of college entrance requirements, representing one year's study in any subject, that subject having been taught for a minimum of 120 classroom hours to qualify.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Carnegie unit¹

After the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where it was developed

Example Sentences

A student must have a minimum of 14 core Carnegie unit credits, including completion of Algebra II, and a minimum 3.0 GPA.

Read more on Washington Times

Andrew Carnegie first established the modern-day credit hour in the early 1900s, allowing colleges to participate in a free pension system if they adopted the use of a “standard unit,” also known as a “Carnegie unit,” for college admissions.

Read more on New York Times

The proposal would move the District away from a system based solely on the age-old “Carnegie unit,” which grants credit according to seat time, in favor of a system that rewards how much a student knows or can do.

Read more on Washington Post

Nearly every aspect of school life – from the academic calendar to college admission requirements and financial aid eligibility – are governed by the Carnegie Unit, or credit hour, a decades-old gauge of college readiness.

Read more on US News

The foundation, which created the Carnegie Unit more than 100 years ago, stressed it was never meant to measure student learning, but rather to distinguish basic requirements for college-level work from high school academics at a time when the majority of the population never finished high school.

Read more on US News