PE Licensing

The Engineering Credit Slide Continues

The slow and steady decrease in the number of credits required for a baccalaureate degree in engineering at U.S. universities continues.

Each year for the last seven years, Jodie Bray Strickland, P.E., of Hampton, New Hampshire, has maintained and updated a spreadsheet showing the number of semester or quarter credits required for a B.S. degree in engineering, as reported on the Web site of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for the period from 1998 through 2010. This database does not include all U.S. universities that offer engineering programs, but it is a significant sample size—233 institutions.

While most institutions’ degree requirements remain constant each year, for the past 20 years now there has been a trend: Each year a handful of institutions reduce their requirements significantly. This slow and steady erosion continues year after year. In 2010, 17% of the institutions reporting their information to ASEE  offered an engineering program or programs requiring 120 credits, the current minimum for a bachelor’s degree in U.S. colleges and universities. In the year 2000, this percentage was 10%. The slide doesn’t appear to be accelerating, but it is steady and an unmistakable continuing trend.

Why is this happening? It isn’t being initiated by engineers or engineering program administrators, typically. The pressure to reduce credit requirements often comes from university administrators, and it is often based on university economics, and pressure from students and parents to allow B.S. degrees to be completed in four years in order to reduce college costs. Pressure to reduce credit requirements and college costs often comes from state legislatures. The typical engineering B.S. program takes a little more than 4 ½ years to complete on average. Most engineering deans probably don’t want to reduce degree requirements, but such decisions are being made none the less.

What is the impact on engineering education? I don’t want to overstate this point: The fact of the matter is that some of the finest engineering programs in the U.S., with some of the brightest engineering students, require 120 credits for a B.S. in engineering. At the other extreme, David Holger, the past president of ABET, made a comment to me last year to the effect that “you know, the programs that struggle on the cusp of engineering accreditation in the U.S. are not typically those with low credit requirements”. I believe that to be true. On the other side of the coin, those engineering programs that decrease their requirements to 120 credits, often from 128 credits, are faced with very difficult curriculum choices. I have seen civil engineering programs in the throes of heated faculty discussions over whether to drop surveying/GIS content, engineering economics, Physics II (leaving civil engineers permanently with little understanding of magnetism and electricity), thermodynamics, or even Physics I, with the assumption that there is enough Newtonian physics in the introductory section of a statics textbook. Those are difficult choices that can permanently change the body of knowledge of future graduates, and not for the better.

Where is this happening? In 2010, the University of Vermont and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks decreased their requirements to 120 credits. Listed below are those institutions that have historically always required significantly more credits for a B.S. degree in engineering, but changed in the past five years, for the first time, to a 120 semester credit (or 180 quarter credit) requirement for an engineering program or programs, as reported by the institution on the ASEE Web site.

2010
University of Vermont
University of Alaska-Fairbanks

2009
Texas Tech University

2008
California State University, Long Beach
Texas A&M University
Rice University

2007
Northern Arizona University
University of the Pacific

2006
Arizona State University
Oregon State University
Vanderbilt University

The upshot is that although the body of knowledge required for engineering practice is increasing, and will continue to increase, the course requirements of engineering programs for a baccalaureate degree are slowly but steadily decreasing, with difficult choices being made as to what content can be dropped from engineering curricula. Slowly but surely.

Editorial input provided by Bernard Berson, P.E., F.NSPE; L. Robert Smith, P.E., F.NSPE, and Jodie Bray Strickland, P.E.

Taking the PE Exam Early

A trend among states to allow early taking of the PE exam is accelerating. For many years, California has allowed candidates to take the PE exam in preparation for licensure after only two years of engineering experience. In recent years, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico have allowed candidates to take the PE exam after receiving a BS degree from an EAC-ABET accredited program, and having passed the FE exam. Now, in the past year, Illinois has instituted the same practice, allowing the early taking of the PE exam. In these states, the licensure candidate still needs to accumulate the requisite years of experience prior to being licensed.

What is the benefit? There are several. Allowing early taking of the PE exam provides a measure of convenience for potential licensees. This is particularly important for engineers in industry whose work experience might be narrowly focused, and who might be more apt to take the exam earlier. This could encourage the licensure of more engineers. For a young engineer who passes the exam early, the likelihood that he or she will become a professional engineer is significantly increased. And that young engineer’s qualifications are strengthened because employers can be confident that he or she will become a professional engineer. The benefit is substantial flexibility and convenience for those who are potentially on a track to become a professional engineer.

What is the effect on pass rates? David James, Ph.D., P.E., of the Nevada Society of Professional Engineers prepared a report for the NSPE Licensure and Qualifications for Practice Committee detailing the PE exam results in Nevada from 2005 through 2011 for civil and non-civil exam takers. The data spans seven years and 12 administrations of the PE exam. For civil engineers, the pass rate in Nevada for those taking the exam with less than four years of experience is 50%, and for those with 4+ years of experience, it is 46%. For all disciplines other than civil (“non-civil”), the pass rate over all 12 administrations in Nevada is 50% for early takers and 61% for those taking the exam after 4+ years of experience. For non-civil engineering disciplines, the pass rate appears to be somewhat higher for more experienced engineers.

The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying has presented data in the past showing pass rates after various numbers of years of experience. In my recollection, that data showed that pass rates are highest after four years, and somewhat, but not substantially, lower with fewer years of experience and lower still for those who wait many years to attempt the exam.

The exam content in each discipline is different. In civil and environmental engineering, much of the exam content is similar to problem sets that are included in academic curricula. It should be noted that the examination is in principles and practice. The principles portion is based on the academic background. There has been some discussion in the engineering community as to whether civil engineering is more rooted in its academic background for the first four years post graduation. In some other disciplines—control systems is a good example—much of the content is information learned in practice, not in school. This variation has to do with the nature of the engineering disciplines, and not with the exam preparation.

What is the downside? There are a number of issues that have been discussed within the engineering profession over the years. Each issue, with its associated counter, is discussed below.

1. Comity: There are a number of states with statutes that require that the PE exam be taken after the requisite years of engineering experience have been attained—even 20 or 30 years after the fact. This has historically been a problem for engineers first licensed in California under the early-taking provision. This needs to get solved in all states, regardless of whether or not the early taking trend spreads, particularly now that Illinois, a state with a population of nearly 13 million in the middle of the country, is allowing early taking of the PE exam. Someone who can pass the PE exam after two years of experience can reasonably be assumed to be capable of passing the PE exam after four years of experience. From a qualifications standpoint, this is a non-issue, in my opinion.
2. Experience Required for Licensure: Some engineers voice the concern that if the PE exam is allowed to be taken early, there will be a push to license engineers with fewer years of engineering experience than is currently required. This has not been the case to date, and need not be the case.
3. Studying for the Exam after Four Years is Good: Some engineers contend that studying for the PE exam after four years of experience helps to tie together academic training and engineering experience. By that same argument, one could contend that perhaps we should require engineers to take the PE exam every four years throughout their careers, an idea which almost no one would advocate.
4. Practice Exam: In some engineering disciplines, engineering experience is more critical to passing the PE exam than in others. However, the early taking of the exam is voluntary. If a control systems engineer wants to wait for three or four years to take the exam, he or she may do so.

In my view, there is upside to the spread of the early-taking trend to more jurisdictions as it may provide less of an obstacle to licensure for some engineers. The downside primarily pertains to comity, which needs to be resolved whether or not additional jurisdictions allow early taking of the PE exam.

Editorial input provided by Bernard Berson, P.E., F.NSPE; L. Robert Smith, P.E., F.NSPE, and Jeff Greenfield, Ph.D., P.E.