How To Calculate CEUs

A CEU, or a continuing education credit, is a nationally recognized measure for hours of continuing education taken. The educational institution that offers the training will also award the CEUs. The American Council on Education makes recommendations for course credit allocation. The educational institution can choose to take or reject the recommendation. Some organizations have established continuing education goals for their employees. Employees are required to take a certain number of CEUs per year. A CEU is equivalent to ten hours of contact instruction. You can calculate the number of CEUs that would be awarded for attending an educational event such as a conference with a few simple steps.

Step 1

Calculate the number of contact minutes of instruction at an educational event such as a seminar. Subtract breaks, socialization time, time taken for introductions and any other time when you are not being taught from the total number of minutes for the entire event to get the total number of contact minutes.

Step 2

Divide the total number of contact minutes calculated in step 1 by 60 to get the total number of contact hours.

Step 3

Divide the total number of contact hours calculated in step 2 by 10 to get the total number of CEUs for the educational event. As an example, a 12 hour training session would translate to 1.2 CEUs.

Step 4

Add the total number of CEUs per attended educational event over the course of a year to get your yearly total of CEUs.