April 21, 2006

Academic vs. Nonacademic: a Call for Truth in Labeling

By ALAN CONTRERAS

The new classification scheme for colleges and universities recently released by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching tiptoes around the idea that two kinds of degrees exist: those that are academic, and those that are not. By continuing to classify institutions instead of programs, the new taxonomy does not recognize that the two types have less and less in common.

Clearly some programs issue degrees that are barely academic. Most associate degrees in business and

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