The education world is not just about qualifications. Sooner or later, you’ll hear about credits. 🪙
A credit is a recognition that a student has taken a course at a school or university. It is a common measure that attests that a student has spent a certain number of hours studying. It typically includes time spent following a lecture in an amphitheater and time spent studying at home (homework).
Why Have Credits?
Why have we invented credits at all, you may ask? Shouldn’t qualifications be enough? 🤔
Credits don’t serve the same purpose. They allow for a smaller division of the students' progress and, more importantly, they are transferable from one school to another but can also be useful inside the same school:
From one school to another: let’s say you’ve studied the first year of your Bachelor's degree at a university in France, and you’d like to continue your studies at another university in Spain. How does the new university know how much you’ve studied and if they can allow you to start directly your second year there? Through the credits you’ve earned! Usually there will also be a bilateral partnership between the 2 schools.
Inside the same school: you can also sometimes create your own program by combining different courses. You can switch some courses as long as you end up having enough credits before you get your qualification. This allows students some flexibility.
There are different credit systems used within each country, although Europe has managed to build a common standard called ECTS which I’ll explain in a bit. 🙂
🇺🇳 Country by Country
🇺🇸 USA
In the US, students receive credit hours based on the number of "contact hours" per week in class. It is known as Semester Credit Hours (SCH).
You get a “contact hour” for typically one hour spent in a course lecture or in a lab. One semester credit hours (1 SCH) corresponds to 15-16 contact hours per semester.
In practice, students tend to get more credits for each hour spent in a lecture than in a lab (it is a bit more “valued”).
To get student financial aid or a student visa, students are required to complete a minimum number of course credits each term.
🇬🇧 UK
The UK credit system is called the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS). It is used by universities in the UK.
1 CATS is equivalent to 10 hours of study.
A full academic year is worth 120 credits. To get a Bachelor's degree (usually 3 years) you need to get 300 credits. If you want to get a Bachelor's degree with honours (to show that you’ve done great work), you will need 360 credits.
Note that there are equivalences:
4 CATS (UK) is equivalent to 1 SCH (USA)
2 CATS (UK) is equivalent to 1 ECTS (Europe)
🇫🇷 France
France, like other European countries, uses the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). This credit system was created in 1989, along with the Erasmus program (a successful student exchange program in Europe).
Students get credits based on how much they work: courses they’ve attended, projects, internships… Credits include time spent on homework.
1 ECTS is roughly equivalent to 25-30 hours of study. About 2/3 of the hours usually happen outside of the classroom.
A full academic year is worth 60 credits (about 1500-1800 hours of study). Credits are only delivered to students who pass their exams.
This means that in Europe:
The Bachelor's (”Licence”) level, 3 years of study, is equivalent to 180 ECTS
The Master's level is equivalent to 300 ECTS (180 ECTS for Bachelor + 120 ECTS for 2 years of Master).
Equivalence Table
You can translate these credit systems from one country to another:
🇺🇸 USA | 🇬🇧 UK | 🇫🇷 France |
1 SCH | 4 CATS | 2 ECTS |
