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Advocate Online
In the Know
Classifying Two-Year Colleges
The U.S. Department of Education tackles
the job of providing new and effective classifications for the nation's
1,600 two-year postsecondary institutions.
More than half of U.S. postsecondary schools
are two-year institutions—and they're the most diverse group of schools
as well. But when everyday policy decisions are made about these institutions,
the data used is likely to be vague, because the nation's top research
source treats two-year schools as a single statistical category.
This year, the National Center for Education
Statistics of the US Department of Education released a report, A Classification
System for 2-Year Postsecondary Institutions, that proposes a new, seven-part
classification system aimed at enabling more accurate analysis of these
schools and their programs.
"The impetus behind the development
of a new classification system," states the report, "rests upon
the fact that the present systems—all with their own strengths—do
not fully and adequately describe this vital sector of the postsecondary
community."
Since 1973, researchers and policy-makers
have relied widely on the classification system of the Carnegie Commission
on Higher Education for analysis of US postsecondary institutions.
Despite its many strengths, the Carnegie
system has been criticized for its treatment of two-year institutions,
which are bunched together in a single classification even though, at
more than 1,600 strong, they are the largest category of postsecondary
school.
The new proposed NCES system includes three
categories of public institution: Community Development and Career Institutions—2,000
students or fewer with low emphasis on progress to four-year institutions;
Community Connector Institutions—between 2,000 and 10,000 students
with some programs facilitating transfer to four-year institutions; and
Community Mega-Connector Institutions—more than 10,000 students with
some emphasis on transfer to four-year institutions.
Private nonprofit institutions are placed
in two categories: Allied Health Institutions, and Connector Institutions—where
the curriculum is not limited to health and there is some focus on progress
to four-year institutions.
Private profit-making institutions are
classified either as Career Connector Institutions or Certificate Institutions—where
all specialized training awards are certificates.
For more information or a copy of the report,
phone 877/4ED-PUBS or go to http://nces.ed.gov/spider/webspider/2001167.shtml.
| From The
Lectern |
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Right now is
a particularly bad time to lose one's seat at the governance table
because someone has to be there to say, "Wait a minute, the
university is a very special place. It's not Wal-Mart U, and students
are not consumers-they are students. Someone has to be there to
say: The pursuit of knowledge is a fundamentally different human
activity than buying patio furniture. The pursuit of knowledge is
a higher order activity that engages the teacher and the learner
in a relationship that is far deeper, far more complex, and far
more enduring than the seller-buyer relationship. Someone has to
be there to say: Shared governance in which the board, the administration,
and the faculty come together as respected partners is an essential
ingredient of a vibrant and intellectually challenging university.
And that someone would be? Us, of course."
—NEA President Bob Chase, NEA Higher Education Critical Issues Seminar, June 1, 2001
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