What is the difference between credit hours and contact hours at college?

Question

What is the difference between credit hours and contact hours at college?

Answer 1

Credit hours is usually the difficulty of the class and how much they charge you for the class.  There should be a price per credit hour and that is multiplied by how many credit hours the class is.  Also the higher the credit hour, the more homework and time spent out of class you should have.  I think contact hours are how much time you actually spend in class or lab.

Answer 2

That is basically correct.

In college parlance, "contact hours" refer to the amount of time that a student spends interacting directly with a faculty member, whereas "credit hours" refer to the number of credits that a particular course "counts" towards your degree requirements.

If a 3-credit "Introduction to Scandinavian Theater" course met from 11:00-11:50 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 15 weeks, that course would have 3 "credit hours" and 37.5 "contact hours".

Those contact hours are determined by multiplying the 50-minute classes by 3 (3 classes per week) and then by 15 (15 weeks of classes) and dividing by 60 (minutes in an hour):

50 x 3 x 15 = 2250 minutes/60 = 37.5 contact hours

Because of scheduling quirks, one 3-credit course might have more or less contact hours than another 3-credit course.

I hope that helped.