IU responds to new Purdue trimesters

Purdue University announced Wednesday that it will begin its transition toward a full-year, trimester-based system as opposed to its current semester-based academic year.

The end result, Purdue spokesperson Chris Sigurdson said, will be full implementation of the system: three 13-week trimesters in the fall, spring and summer. The change comes as part of the school’s 10-year funding plan, which hopes to raise revenue for the university as well as contain costs, he said.

The summer trimester, Sigurdson said, will be optional and available for students hoping to obtain their undergraduate degrees in three years instead of four. He said the university hopes the change will respond to increased job market demands for individuals with degrees in engineering and science.

Other possibilities for students under the new trimester system include prolonged studies abroad as well as internships in the fall and spring, when competition among students tends to be less than in the summer, he said.

“Credit offerings will also expand 25 percent, yielding $40 million for the university, but the cost of credits per hour will drop because things like upkeep of facilities will already be taken care of,” he said.

Sigurdson said the university will not abandon its semester structure all at once but rather use the next few years to build up summer faculty, and students have reacted positively to the proposal.

“Once the students found out it was optional, they saw opportunity,” he said.

IU Associate Vice President of University Communications Mark Land said IU and Purdue share similar educational goals.

“Universities all want the same kind of things. We want to keep students on tack. We want to keep it as cost effective as possible,” Land said. “There are just a lot of different ways of doing that.”

Land cited the University’s October 2011 announcement of summer tuition discounts.

“We’d certainly like to see students using our facilities more during the summer, and that’s why we feel that giving our students a significant discount on tuition during the summer will encourage them to do so,” he said.

“It was done to provide financial relief for students and families and give an incentive for students to adopt a more flexible calendar.”

However, Land would not rule out the possibility of IU operating on a trimester system in the future.

“I would say its probably too early to say that anything is off the table.”