A Researcher's Perspective

The two-year college sector in U.S. higher education encompasses a great diversity of institutions. Yet the most widely used taxonomy of colleges and universities, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, places all two-year colleges in a single undifferentiated category. The intent of this volume is to advance the conversation among researchers and practitioners about possible approaches to classifying two-year colleges.

This article discusses classification systems for two-year colleges from a researcher's perspective.

This article appeared in New Directions in Community Colleges: Classification Systems for Two-Year Colleges, vol. 2003, no. 122.