Understanding the different types of higher education institutions is important because categories for higher education institutions can be incorporated in policy for resource allocation, help prospective students and staff members identify the pool of institutions they want to join, and be used to study higher education.

While classifications of higher education institutions serves a variety of purposes, it is also important to note the following challenges and caveats:

• determining what constitutes a single entity is less clear as university boundaries become indistinct and permeable

• a classification may accurately describe a population of institutions, but this does not assure accuracy at the institutional level

• misclassification can arise for institutions undergoing rapid change

(McCormick & Borden, 2017)

In order for students to describe the various types of higher education institutions and the different purposes they serve, students will read McCormick & Borden (2017) and complete a brief knowledge check, learn about approaches to classficiations, see examples of classifcation types, and apply their learning in a mix-and-match activity, 

Required Reading: McCormick & Borden (2017)

One prominent classifiaction system used in the United States (U.S.) is the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which began in 1973 and has been widely used to study higher education because it represents and controls for institutional differences (e.g., functions, degree production, research funding, selectivity). The Carnegie Classification is regularly updated to reflect changes among colleges and universities. Below is an example of how the Carnegie Classification distinguishes higher education institutions.

Doctoral Universities

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) classification includes broad degree level designations (Doctoral, Master’s, Baccalaureate, and Associate’s) and further divides the Associate’s category according to whether academic staff have professorial ranks.

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) classifcation employs three broad groupings that distinguish degree level and program type (four-year, two-year, and technical), with subcategories reflecting size, program breadth (number), and comprehensiveness (distribution of degrees across programs).

Unlike the Carnegie, AAUP, and SREB classifications, U-Multirank considers higher education institutions from countries beyond the U.S. The 2022 edition covers over 2,000 institutions from 96 countries on five dimensions:

1. teaching and learning (e.g., digital education investment, outreach programs),

2. research (e.g., female authors, citation rate),

3. knowledge transfer (e.g., co-publications with industrial partners, income from private sources),

4. international orientation (e.g., student mobility, international academic staff), and

5. regional advancement (e.g., student internships in the region, regional join publications). 

Below are the U-Multirank results comparing Hanoi University of Science and Technology, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Ton Duc Thang University, and Tra Vinh University. 

Additional Readings

Seecharan, K. (2020). Exploring the Impetus of R2 Universities that Attain R1 Status (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania).

What happens when institutions change from being one type of university to another type of university? Seecharan examines the increasing number of institutions shifting from R2 classification (high research activity) to R1 (very high research activity) and the early resultant institutional and public policy tradeoffs that come from reclassification. 

Links

NBC News: Carnegie Classification System Updates Focus on Socioeconomics Mobility 

Classifications of higher education institutions are not static. This can be seen in how the Carnegie Classification System is updating to focus on socioeconomic mobility. 

References