All full-time students at KGI are required to be enrolled in a minimum of 12 semester credit hours. In order to be considered full-time for purposes of federal financial aid, graduate students must be enrolled in at least 12 credits per semester. (The one exception is the PhD program: to be considered full-time, PhD students must be enrolled in 15 semester credits per term). To maintain full-time status, and to comply with federal guidelines, more than 50% of all earned academic credit must be completed in coursework where “seat-time” does apply. In order to be considered half-time, graduate students must be enrolled in at least six credits per semester and obtain permission prior to the start of the semester from the Dean.

KGI awards credits in accordance with the following criteria: for each 1 credit, a course meets for 1 hour per week in a 15- week semester, as further defined below. For example, a three- credit course is expected to have a total of 45 classroom hours and 90 hours of student work outside of class per semester. 

KGI is on the semester system. Each semester or term is approximately 15 weeks. Course credit hour calculations are based on a 15- week semester.

For all KGI courses bearing academic credit, the “semester credit hour” is defined using the Carnegie Definition as “the amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement that is an institutionally established equivalency that reasonably approximates not less than.