Contact: Joe Farris
Mississippi State is among the nation's 148 "doctoral extensive" universities in a revised classification of nearly 4,000 American higher education institutions designed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Under the new system announced this month by the Menlo Park, Calif.-based organization, "doctoral/research extensive" universities award at least 50 doctorates a year in at least 15 disciplines.
From 1997 through 1999, Mississippi State awarded an average of 104 doctoral degrees a year in an average of 19 different disciplines. As a result, it now ranks among fewer than 4 percent of American colleges and universities classified as doctoral/research extensive.
Institutions in a second tier the foundation now classifies as "doctoral/research intensive" confer at least 10 doctorates annually in three or more fields.
In use since 1970, the previous Carnegie classification grouped doctorate-granting universities into four categories based mainly on levels of federal research funding. Mississippi State previously was a Research II institution, but had met the criteria to move up to the top Research I category since the classification was last updated under the former system in 1994.
Carnegie officials said the 2000 classification is an interim step toward a complete revamping of the categories planned for 2005. The Carnegie classification has been widely used over the past three decades to group institutions according to their academic missions and research levels.
Other categories of institutions under the new system include: Master's I; Master's II; Baccalaureate/Liberal Arts; Baccalaureate/General; Baccalaureate/Associate's; and Associate's degree institutions. Several classifications for highly specialized institutions also are listed.
More information about the Carnegie classifications, including category listings for all institutions, is available online at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/Classification/index.htm.