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Describing Regional Public Universities (RPUs): It’s All About Context

ByBlake Decker

With the release of the 2025 Carnegie Classification system at the end of the spring semester, we have spent a great deal of time looking at the various aspects of data incorporated into the new three-pronged Carnegie approach that includes Institutional Classification, Student Access And Earnings Classification, and Research Activity Designations. Within these broader constructs, we have also explored many facets of two new frameworks designed to distinguish different types of institutions more holistically: Regional Public Universities (RPUs) and Rural-Serving Institutions (RSIs, as developed by the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges (ARRC). Deeper analyses of the underlying data have revealed what many in higher education intuitively understand: RPUs and non-RPUs are fundamentally different types of institutions. As we wrap-up this data series, we present a number of variables that highlight the distinctive nature of Regional Public Universities in terms of the students and regions that these institutions serve.

quantifying the differences between rpu and non-rpu institutions

As previously discussed, the ARRC utilized more than 125 variables in their RPU and RSI analyses that, in part, determined RPU status. In our pairwise analysis of the ARRC data, more than 85% of the 115 numerical variables showed a meaningful difference (Cohen’s d ≥ 0.2) between RPU and non-RPU institutions, with 60% of those variables showing large effect sizes (Cohen’s d ≥ 0.8). These “large effects” (at least 8/10ths of a difference in pooled standard deviations) indicated there were substantial and meaningful differences between RPUs and non-RPUs across the majority of variables.

A previous analysis looked at numerical variables in which Non-RPU institutions had significantly higher values than RPU institutions. Most of these variables were related to institutional scale and financial resources. Conversely, this blog post shows percentage-based variables where RPUs have higher values than their Non-RPU counterparts. In the visualization below, we present a collection of variables that highlight characteristics of RPUs in the ARRC data.

  • Percentage of In-State Students: Across the 474 RPUs in the United States, almost 85% of first-time undergraduates are in-state residents, which is 25% higher than the average percentage for Non-RPU institutions.
  • Admission Rate: RPUs admit almost 78% of the total number of applicants compared to 66% at Non-RPUs. This data point highlights a feature seen in a previous blog post where RPUs had higher Student Access Scores than Non-RPU institutions.
  • Student Demographics:
    • Women: Almost 60% of the student body at RPUs is comprised of women, while Non-RPUs are closer to an even split between women and men.
    • Pell Grant Recipients: Almost 1 out of every 2 students at RPUs received Pell Grant funding, a rate that is almost 82% higher than the Pell Grant Rate at Non-RPU institutions (47.5% versus 26.2%, respectively).
    • URM Students: More than one-third of all students at RPUs are considered Underrepresented Minority (URM) students (commonly defined as including Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, and American Indian or Alaska Native students). By comparison, less than one-in-four students at Non-RPU institutions are considered URM students.
    • Part-Time Students: Almost 31% of all students enrolled at RPUs are part-time students (< 12 SCH for undergraduates or <9 SCH for graduate students), which is a 49% higher rate than found at Non-RPUs.
    • Adult Students: One out of every five undergraduate students at RPUs are adult students (ages 25-64), while that ratio is 1-in-10 at Non-RPUs.
  • Rurality: RPUs are located in counties where almost 25% of the county’s population is classified as rural. This rate is almost double that of Non-RPU institutions at 12.7%.
  • Associate’s Degrees: Across RPUs in American, almost one-quarter (24%) of all degrees granted by RPU institutions are Associate’s degrees, which is more than triple the percentage of Associate’s degrees awarded (6.5%) by Non-RPU institutions.

So What?

Throughout this series of seven blog posts, we have sought to unpack a variety of components related to the new Carnegie Classification framework. A data thread that we have tugged on repeatedly is quantifying differences between Regional Public Universities (RPUs) and Non-RPUs. We have seen that Non-RPU institutions generally have larger student bodies, more financial resources, and conduct higher levels of research than RPUs, while RPUs provide higher-than-anticipated levels of access to students in the locations they serve while enrolling greater proportions of Pell Grant recipients, URM students, part-time students, and adult students. RPUs are also more affordable, with a national average of $8,896 for annual tuition and fees, as compared to $12,325 for Non-RPUs (ARRC). The data seem to support the perspective that context matters in terms of how we identify and address the challenges and opportunities facing different types of institutions. Given that the data indicate that RPUs and Non-RPUs are, in so many ways, different types of institutions, we must consider these distinctive features of RPU and Non-RPU institutions as we collectively seek to increase readiness, access, and outcomes for all students, regardless of the type of institution they attend.