In addition to being recognized as a Carnegie R2 university earlier this year, the University of New Orleans has been classified as a Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate-Doctorate Medium institution with Higher Access, Medium Earnings. That’s according to the 2025 Institutional Classification and 2025 Student Access and Earnings Classification announced today.

The Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education released the fully redesigned Carnegie Classifications as part of an ongoing effort to make the classifications more useful, relevant and reflective of the nation’s ever-evolving higher education landscape.

The 2025 Institutional Classification revises the previous classification approach and uses a new methodology to organize institutions with similar campuses. Generally, institutions are classified based on multiple characteristics, including the types of degrees they award, the subjects in which they award degrees and the size of the institution. UNO’s classification, Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate-Doctorate Medium, includes 100 institutions. This represents 3% of U.S. colleges and universities in the Institutional Classification.

The 2025 Student Access and Earnings Classification is a new classification, and it examines the extent to which an institution is enrolling students who reflect the communities it serves and whether its students go on to earn competitive wages compared to peers in their area. The Student Access and Earnings Classification aims to spur collaboration and institutional improvement with a focus on how higher education can foster opportunities for student success.

Institutions receive two measures: one for access, which is based on the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants and the percentage of undergraduate students who are from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds, and one that is based on undergraduate students' post-attendance earnings eight years after entering the institution. In the classification, this data has been contextualized to consider local demographic and economic data. UNO’s classification, Higher Access, Medium Earnings, includes 1,321 institutions. This represents 43% of U.S. colleges and universities in the Student Access and Earnings Classification.

Earlier this year, UNO was once again recognized as a High Spending and Doctorate Production institution, also known as an R2 university. According to the Carnegie Classification, R2 institutions, on average in a single year, spend at least $5 million a year on research and development, and award at least 20 research doctorates.

The Carnegie Classifications are updated every three years, with the last release finalized in February 2022. The next release of the Carnegie Classifications is planned for spring 2028.