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 and others, that has resulted in focusing on institutional behavior that may not always center on what is best for students.
This year, to better reflect the breadth of the United States’ higher education system in the 21st century, we’re unveiling a series of significant updates to the Carnegie Classifications. This release follows a period of learning and collaboration with the field, and we wrote about our learning and reflections in the January/February 2025 edition of Change Magazine, sharing more about why the Carnegie Classifications are important and how they continue to shape higher education. The article goes into the history of the Carnegie Classifications and their significance throughout the past half century, focusing in particular on what has happened following the 2005 update that was previewed by our predecessors in the January/February 2005 edition of Change. We also explain why now is the time to lean into the ever-changing higher education landscape and adapt our work to reflect that. Here’s a quick excerpt:
In all of our conversations over the past couple of years, we actually have wondered whether the Carnegie Classifications should be discontinued entirely. But there’s a reason the classifications are used so often and so widely: They are familiar, comprehensive and extremely useful. …
Ceding the ground to a host of third parties—some of which might have their own motivations for creating a classification system—could easily lead us to a worse, less accurate state. Instead, we are keeping them—with revisions and updates.The reimagined framework of the classifications will better reflect the increased diversity of institutions and the learners they serve, with more data and more tools for institutions and researchers to use. It will also be a classification system that can grow with the sector over the years to come. The classification system will never be perfect. Undoubtedly, in future releases, we will improve the methodologies further, add more and better data, and adjust what is not working. Classifying such a diverse mix of institutions means establishing clear lines between groups, and there will always be institutions that are borderline cases, as well as institutions that do not agree with where the lines were drawn. But we hope by revisiting the purpose of this classification system and reflecting on the work underway across the sector, we will create a system that recognizes and captures the diversity and breadth of institutions—so we can all learn what is working best for students.