Links

IU Press Releases

• December 15, 2021
• December 19, 2018

Media Articles

• December 19, 2018 — Inside Higher Education
• August 3, 2018 — Borden Letter to Chronicle Editor:commenting on one of the articles
• July, 29, 2018 — Chronicle Special Report
• February 4, 2016 — The Washington Post
• February 2, 2016 — Phys.Org
• November 19, 2014 — Diverse Issues in Higher Education
• October 9, 2014 — The Chronicle of Higher Education
• October 9, 2014 —Inside Higher Ed.

Carnegie Classifications Presentations

Access presentations by the Carnegie Classification team
• Thursday 18, June 2016 — Victor Borden: CPR Brownbag on Carnegie Classification

Selected Articles & Books

Access selected articles and books related to the Carnegie Classification
• Rethinking and Reframing the Carnegie Classification by Alexander C. McCormick and Chun-Mei Zhao (2005)

Broad Questions

Shows and provides answers to general questions about the Carnegie Classification
• Where can I find institution listings or my own institution's classifications?
  See Standard Listings.
• Where are the Carnegie rankings?
  The Carnegie Classification is not a ranking of colleges and universities. Our classifications identify meaningful similarities and differences among institutions, but they do not imply quality differences.
• Who are the classifications for?
  From its inception, the Carnegie Classification’s purpose has been to assist those conducting research on higher education. Researchers need a way to reference the great diversity of colleges and universities in the United States, and classifications enable them to identify groups of roughly comparable institutions. The primary audience is the research community, including academic researchers and institutional research staff as well as other education analysts. By providing a set of distinct classifications as well as a set of online tools for creating custom listings (combining categories within classifications, identifying institutions in similar categories across classifications, or filtering listings by selected criteria), researchers now have much greater analytic flexibility, allowing them to match classification tools to their needs.
• What institutions are included?
  All Title IV eligible, degree-granting colleges and universities in the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and the territories and commonwealths of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico represented in the National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS system (as of the year the classification was issued and subject to the availability of required data) are eligible for inclusion in the Carnegie Classifications. Campuses that are separately identified in IPEDS are classified separately.
• How can I download a file with all institutions and classifications?
  The Downloads page has a complete spreadsheet file with all institutions and classifications, as well as most of the underlying data and IPEDS UNITIDs. The Downloads page also includes information from previous editions of the Carnegie Classification.
• Why don’t the classifications distinguish between public and private institutions?
  One reason the Carnegie Classification was developed in 1970 was because routinely separating public and private institutions often ignored important similarities in mission and function.
  
  Classification listings can be filtered by control or other attributes.

Institution-specific Questions

Shows and provides answers to questions about specific institutions
• Why can't I find my institution?
  If your institution might not be included if it was not Title IV eligible or otherwise did not report any degrees to IPEDS for the 2019-20 academic year.
• I tried "Find Similar" from the institution display, but the result didn't show any other institutions. Why?
  This is quite common if you are looking for similarity across most or all of the classifications. Because the classifications are highly disaggregated, the number of possible combinations across all of the classifications exceeds the total number of institutions. Try selecting fewer classifications, or use the Custom Listings tool to identify and combine categories of interest within each classification.
• On the institution display, why is Enrollment size not an option to find other institutions with?
  The Size and Setting classification provides a good proxy for identifying institutions with similar institution enrollment - this can be done by clicking the check box on the "Size and Setting" row.
• Why does the enrollment figure that is returned for my institution not appear to reflect our current enrollment?
  The enrollment figure displayed is from Fall 2020, reflecting the enrollment that was current when the Classification was updated in 2021.
• My institution has a new name/my institution's name is listed incorrectly. How can we get it changed?
  Name changes: Please send an email to carnegie@acenet.edu containing a link to the official announcement of the name change on the institution’s website (please specify "name change" in the subject line), from an institutional email account. Please include a contact name and telephone number for confirmation.
  
  Name corrections: Name corrections will only be accepted if (1) they come from the office of communications, public information, institutional research, or the chief executive officer; and (2) the requesting official’s full name, title, and contact information are clearly identified. Correction requests can be sent by email to carnegie@acenet.edu (please specify "name change" in the subject line). Email requests must be sent from an institutional email account.

Data Sources and Statistical Digests

• Academic Institutional Profiles at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Center for Measuring University Performance at UMass Amherst
• College Board College Search (view selected data from the College Board Annual Survey of Colleges)
• Database of Institutions and Programs Accredited by Recognized United States Accrediting Organizations at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation
• College Navigator (search by name or characteristics and view selected IPEDS data)
• Digest of Education Statistics at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) at NCES
• Peer Analysis System (view, analyze, and download IPEDS data)
• NCES Data Analysis System (access NCES data and related reports)
• NCHEMS Information Center for State Higher Education Policymaking and Analysis

Higher Education Research and Policy

• Accreditation in the United States at the U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education
• Association for Institutional Research
• Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)
• Center for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente
• Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley
• Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan
• Collegiate Learning Assessment at the Council for Aid to Education
• Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University
• Community College Survey of Student Engagement
• Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
• Council for Higher Education Accreditation
• Institute for Higher Education at the University of Georgia
• National Survey of Student Engagement
• Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research
• Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education at Williams College

Higher Education Press and Journals

Articles
• Rankings Tail Wags the Dog (Inside Higher Ed, October 17, 2006)
• College Classifications Get an Overhaul (The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 3, 2006)
• The New Carnegie Classifications (Inside Higher Ed, February 27, 2006)

Opinion
• Hidden in Plain View (Inside Higher Ed, May 10, 2007)
• A New Set of Lenses for Looking at Colleges (Inside Higher Ed, November 14, 2005)
• Classification's Complexities (The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 11, 2005)
• How Classifications Can Help Colleges (The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 8, 2000)
• Letter to the Editor in response (October 13, 2000)