USN&WR institutional classification

<ul>

<li><a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities">National Universities</a> offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and doctoral programs, and emphasize faculty research or award professional practice doctorates.</li>

<li><a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges">National Liberal Arts Colleges</a> focus almost exclusively on undergraduate education and award at least 50% of their degrees in the arts and sciences.</li>

<li><a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities">Regional Universities</a> offer a broad scope of undergraduate degrees and some master's degree programs but few, if any, doctoral programs. We ranked them in four geographical groups: North, South, Midwest and West.</li>

<li><a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-colleges">Regional Colleges</a> focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than 50% of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines. They sometimes predominantly award two-year associate degrees. We ranked them in four geographical groups: North, South, Midwest and West.</li>

</ul>

<p>To place each school in its ranking, U.S. News strictly maps its categories to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education's <a href="http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/index.php" target="_blank">Basic Classification</a> system. The U.S. Department of Education and many higher education associations use the Carnegie system to organize or label their data, among other uses. In short, the Carnegie categories are the accepted standard in U.S. higher education.</p>