Using IPEDS to Develop a Classification System for Two‐Year Postsecondary Institutions

Abstract

One of the most important and most enduring ways in which classification systems are used is for governmental, system, and institutional policy development. Classification systems are involved in allocating funds, comparing institutional inputs and outputs, and making decisions about faculty, students, and staff. At the national level, establishing a meaningful classification system for two-year institutions that is supportive of and necessary to policy development and research is limited by the extent to which appropriate data for the universe of two-year institutions are collected.In attempting to construct a national system of classification for twoyear institutions, the sources of data are regrettably limited. The most comprehensive of these data sources is the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). IPEDS is the core postsecondary education data collection program in the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It encompasses all institutions and educational organizations whose primary purpose is to provide postsecondary education. Data are collected from more than ten thousand postsecondary accredited and nonaccredited institutions, including baccalaureate and higher degree-granting institutions, two-year award institutions, and less-than-twoyear institutions. The IPEDS system is built around a series of interrelated surveys that collect institution-level data on enrollment, program completion, faculty, staff, finances, and academic libraries.In conducting the analysis for this chapter, we have chosen to take an explicitly empirical approach to classification of two-year institutions