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How Top Colleges and Universities Make Economic Mobility a Reality for Low-income Students
In the last few years, researchers and education leaders have increased their focus on the role of higher education in advancing economic mobility. Organizations such as Opportunity Insights and Third Way have published ratings of institutions based on the degree to which they promote economic mobility for low-income students, and the new Carnegie Student Access…
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Meet the Host Institutions of the Carnegie Elective Classifications
The Carnegie Elective Classifications recognize colleges and universities that demonstrate extraordinary commitments to their public purpose. Unlike the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which includes the Institutional Classification, Research Activity Designations, and Student Access and Earnings Classification, campuses voluntarily pursue elective designations through an evidence-based application process that examines how their institutional policies…
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How the Student Access and Earnings Classification Measures Economic Mobility
Among the many reasons students seek a postsecondary education, the promise of economic mobility is front and center. In fact, the majority say higher earning potential is a primary reason they enrolled. We designed the Student Access and Earnings Classification to study whether institutions are making good on this fundamental promise. To be clear, we…
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Why We’re Measuring Access to Center Student Success
When the Carnegie Classifications introduced the Student Access and Earnings Classification, we set out to more fully explore what plenty of research has already shown: higher education is a reliable engine of social and economic mobility for students nationwide. A few frameworks currently exist to measure the value of higher education and its return on…
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Using the Carnegie Classifications as a Policy Tool to Improve Higher Education and Student Outcomes
Over the past several years, as many as 25 states have used the Carnegie Classifications in some form of policy or practice, including funding formulas. The 2025 Carnegie Classifications provide states with a modernized, comprehensive framework to support higher education policy and funding decisions through three distinct components: the Institutional Classification, Research Activity Designations, and…
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Reflecting on the Carnegie Classification’s 2025 Redesign
The Carnegie Classifications were created over half a century ago with a clear purpose: offering researchers a more nuanced understanding of the nation’s higher education landscape. Since then, the classifications have evolved to have an outsized influence on institutional benchmarks, organization, and resources, largely shaped by the chase for an R1 designation and a high…
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Institutions Across U.S. React to Being Named Opportunity Colleges and Universities Under the New Student Access and Earnings Classification
The newly redesigned Carnegie Classifications are intended to better reflect the multifaceted nature of the higher education landscape and to measure the extent to which institutions provide students access and a path to earning competitive wages. The 2025 update includes a revision of the historic Basic Classification, now titled the Institutional Classification, and a newly…
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2025 Carnegie Classification Appeal Window
As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and accuracy, the Carnegie Classifications invites institutions to submit appeals, report anomalies, request special consideration, or raise other relevant issues regarding their data, Institutional Classification, or Student Access and Earnings Classification. Appeals can be submitted online through the end of June. Institutional preferences for how they are classified…
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Renewing the Social Contract for Higher Education
With public confidence in colleges at a crossroads, Ted Mitchell and Timothy Knowles call for a new social contract centered on student success—and offer the Carnegie-ACE classification as a path forward. Read the full post on Higher Education Today
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Why 2025 is the year of significant updates to the Carnegie Classifications
Since the Carnegie Classifications were first introduced in 1973, the world – and higher education – has changed tremendously. But the classifications have not. As a result, the Carnegie Classifications largely has used a 50-year-old perspective to organize U.S. colleges and universities as they operate today, and given how the classifications are used by policymakers…