Advantages of using Mission-Driven Classification (MDC)
The Carnegie Basic Classification is a “highest degree awarded” 3 x 5 scheme (public/private-non-profit/private-for-profit by Doctoral, Master’s, Baccalaureate, Baccalaureate Associate, & Associate). The MDC recognizes each public sector as commonly seen by practitioners, policymakers (states and federal level) and scholars. The MDC uses geography to (1) classify the 1,497 public institutions into three sectors (107 Flagship Universities, 439 Regional Universities, 951 Community Colleges) and 14 subtypes; (2) MDC uses institutional size, program offerings, and selectivity to classify the 1,819 private-non-profit institutions into 9 subtypes; and (3) program offerings to classify the 954 private-for-profits into 4 subtypes (four- and two-year general and special use institutions). The preliminary update of MDC’s public portion is presented on the pages below; the private sector is to be published in 8/23.
Principles of a Classification Scheme
- Completeness–It must include the entire universe (a virtue of Kerr’s Carnegie Basic).
- Accuracy–place institutions into the right groupings consistency (also in “old Carnegie”).
- Stability–institutions once grouped should not often move from sector to sector over time.
- Meaningfulness–create peer groupings as users actually see them.
Meaningfulness means utility to a diverse set of users simultaneously. In contrast, Carnegie, the backbone of US News & World Report rankings, assumes the public good of a for-profit four year university and that of a CSU-Long Beach or University of Alabama are equal. As Katsinas, Bray, and Kanter describe in Educating the Top 100 Percent, Policy Pathways for Public Higher Education (2022), America’s public higher education story has to be told simultaneously to state and federal audiences.
Geography Underpins Meaningfulness
MDC incorporates geography which heavily influences where most institutions obtain their students AND how they are financially supported. In the case of public institutions, the nation’s 107 Flagship Universities have assigned statewide or regional missions, while all 439 public Regional Universities serve regions (the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ “Stewardship of Place” initiative speaks to the commitment of Regional Universities to improve the economic and community development of their service regions. All 38 publicly-controlled Historically Black Colleges and Universities are classified among the 439 Regional Universities. State legislators and the Congress and elected by geographic districts, and state policymakers must consider their entire states for both operating budgets as well as need-based student aid.
IPEDS Training Presentation
Navigating the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
Presented by Noel E. Keeney, Research Associate at the UA Education Policy Center, this training walks through how to access and use IPEDS — the federal database tracking postsecondary institutions nationwide. Topics include the history and structure of IPEDS, how to select institutions by name, group, or UnitID, how to query and export variables, and how to save and return to data queries. Designed for researchers, graduate students, and policy analysts working with IPEDS data.
Download Presentation →Brief History of MDC
Initial work on classifications began with funding from the Ford Foundation as it launched its $45 million Rural Community College Initiative demonstration program in 1994 (25 pilot community and tribal colleges serving persistent poverty rural counties in Appalachia, the Lower Mississippi Delta, the Southwest Four Corners, the Texas Border, and tribal regions of the High Plains). Ford saw invisibility of rural colleges in policy circles. Katsinas and Vincent Lacey developed a classification of the community college sector, advanced by David Hardy included in the 2005 and 2010 editions of the Carnegie Basic Classification for Associates Colleges (embedded in all federal IPEDS data sets). 1In 2016, Katsinas, Lacey, and Hardy added in the work of Louis Shedd, Nathaniel Bray, and Andrew Koricich to classify the other two sectors of public institutions (Flagship Universities and Regional Universities). 2Presently, Lacey, Hardy, Bray, and Koricich along with Noel E. Keeney and Patrick J. Kelly classified the private-non-profit and private-for-profit sectors as they update the public sectors. In Summer 2023, the Education Policy Center will be convening meetings to review the totality of the classification scheme.
MDC in Practice
Research Using the Mission Driven Classification
The MDC framework is used as an analytical tool across EPC’s national finance and access research — enabling more precise disaggregation of enrollment, funding, and access data by institution type and geography than traditional classification systems allow. Below are selected publications that explicitly apply the MDC methodology. For the full body of national finance and access research, visit the National Survey of Finance & Access page.
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Juried Article · Winter 2023 Declining Pell Support at Community Colleges Since the Great RecessionKatsinas, Keeney, Bray, Kelly Analyzes U.S. Department of Education data on Pell Grant appropriations using the Mission-Driven Classification to disaggregate enrollment, finance, and need-based Pell Grant data by major public higher education sector and, within community colleges, by geography (rural, suburban, and urban) as well as by the presence or lack of local funding.
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Report · October 2025 The Widening College Access Gap: Pell Grant Disinvestment and Declining Student Enrollment in the SouthKatsinas, Keeney, Bray, Alexander Documents how federal Pell Grant funding cuts and eligibility restrictions after 2011-12 have negatively impacted college access across the South, with Southern states accounting for 58% of the national decline in Black student enrollment between 2011-12 and 2021-22.
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Refereed Proceedings · April 2018 Research Panel: Examining the Employment Profile of Institutions Under the Mission-Driven Classification System and the Impact of Collective BargainingBray Uses the Mission-Driven Classification to profile employment patterns across public higher education institutions, examining how collective bargaining status intersects with institutional sector and geography to shape staffing and compensation structures.
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Refereed Proceedings · December 2016 Monetary Compensation of Full-Time Faculty at American Public Regional Universities: The Impact of Geography and the Existence Regional UniversitiesKatsinas, Ogun, Bray Examines full-time faculty compensation at public regional universities nationwide, finding that both geographic region and the presence of collective bargaining significantly shape pay outcomes — research that drew feature coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education, InsideHigherEd, and The Nation.
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Refereed Proceedings · December 2016 The Impact of Collective Bargaining and Local Appropriations on Faculty Salaries and Benefits at U.S. Community CollegesMayhall, Katsinas, Bray Analyzes how collective bargaining and local tax appropriations together shape faculty salaries and benefits at U.S. community colleges, highlighting the added dimension local funding brings to compensation outcomes beyond the state and federal levels.
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Issue Brief No. 36 · January 2016 After the Great Recession: Higher Education’s New NormalKatsinas, D’Amico, Friedel, Adair, Warner, Malley A five-year longitudinal analysis of National Surveys of Access and Finance Issues documenting structural changes in state higher education funding following the Great Recession, disaggregating findings across the MDC’s three public sectors — flagship universities, regional universities, and community colleges.
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The EPC staff is conducting free 1-hour zoom training sessions on using MDC and pulling IPEDS data for CSCC-members/graduate classes. Please contact Noel Keeney at nekeeney@crimson.ua.edu