Differential Characteristics of 2-Year Postsecondary Institutions. Postsecondary Education Descriptive Analysis Report

摘要

Two-year institutions, including community colleges and career schools, have become increasingly important in American higher education since the 1940s. In 2003-04, 43 percent of all undergraduates were enrolled at 2-year institutions (Horn and Nevill 2006). Two-year colleges exist in the public, not-for-profit, and forprofit sectors and include many types of institutions with various and unique histories. Many classification systems for 2-year institutions have been developed since that time and use a wide array of characteristics and perspectives to differentiate between 2-year institutions. However, these classification systems generally could not be applied to all 2-year institutions, or easily adjusted in subsequent years. Therefore, a classification system for 2-year institutions was developed by Phipps, Shedd, and Merisotis (2001) that employed cluster analysis and a number of variables available on the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to identify seven groups of 2-year institutions: small publics; medium-sized publics; large publics; allied health not-for-profits; other not-for-profits; degree-granting for-profits; and other for-profits.