DOI: 10.3886/e240541v1
title: Institutional Provision of Occupational and Continuing Professional Education: An Examination of Market, Mission, and Academic Logics in Higher Education

description: Noncredit education is increasingly recognized as a strategic priority among higher education institutions in the United States. Despite this growing attention, the factors motivating nonprofit four-year colleges to offer occupational and continuing professional education remain underexplored. Using institutional logic theory, we explored how market dependence (market logic), mission orientation (mission logic), and academic structures (academic logic) predict such offerings. We analyzed longitudinal data from IPEDS and state-level sources (2006–2023) using generalized linear mixed models across 3,521 institution-year observations for occupational education and 5,891 for continuing professional education. Findings reveal that occupational education is significantly associated with institutional mission scope and academic governance, particularly among master’s institutions and those with tenure systems. Conversely, market pressures such as tuition dependence show limited influence. For continuing professional education, Carnegie Classification was a significant predictor, with baccalaureate colleges more likely to offer such programming compared to master’s institutions. Other market and academic logic indicators were not significant predictors of continuing professional education. Our results deepen understanding of how nonprofit four-year institutions navigate competing logics when diversifying their program offerings and provide practical guidance for higher education leaders seeking to align noncredit offerings with institutional identity and workforce needs.
description: We restricted our sample to four-year institutions in the United States (excluding U.S. Territories) that, in 2023, reported a private not-for-profit or public control and held a Basic Carnegie Classification of Baccalaureate Colleges (arts and sciences or diverse fields), Master’s Colleges and Universities (larger, medium, or smaller programs), Doctoral/Research Universities, or Research Universities (high or very high research activity). These criteria produced an initial sample of 1,517 institutions and 27,306 institution-year observations. We retained institutions in the analytic sample only for the years in which their institutional control and Basic Carnegie Classification met these inclusion criteria. In other words, we removed observations from years in which institutions were classified outside these categories (e.g., Associate’s Colleges, Special Focus Institutions, private for-profit). This approach ensured that all retained observations reflected nonprofit four-year institutions consistent with our study’s theoretical focus, while preserving longitudinal observations for institutions that transitioned into the nonprofit four-year sector during the study period, 2006–2023.<br><br>We removed 474 observations (2.4%) from 183 institutions (12.1%) for missing predictor variable data. We removed an additional 74 observations (0.3%) from 10 institutions (0.7%) for years in which institutions reported a control status of “private for-profit” or “not applicable.” We also removed 1,647 observations (6.0%) from 189 (12.5%) institutions for years in which institutions reported Basic Carnegie Classifications (e.g., Associate’s Colleges, Special Focus Institutions) that did not align with our inclusion criteria. Finally, we deleted five cases (0.02%) from four institutions (0.3%) due to missing outcome data.<br><br>To ensure sufficient within-institution longitudinal information, we removed 10 institutions (0.7%) with fewer than three years of data. In addition, we removed 1,386 institutions that exhibited no variability in the binary outcome measure. Specifically, we excluded 1,274 institutions that reported offering occupational education in either all or none of the observed years, and 1,149 institutions that showed the same pattern for continuing professional education, resulting in no within-institution variability for those outcomes. Such cases did not contribute information to our analytical model estimating within-institution change over time.<br><br>Following this screening process, we retained separate unbalanced analytic panels for each research question. As institutions could meet the variance requirement for one outcome but not the other, the composition of the two analytic samples was not identical. The analytic sample for occupational education (RQ1) included 3,521 observations from 230 institutions, and the analytical sample for continuing professional education (RQ2) included 5,891 observations from 355 institutions.
description: Higher education institutions in the United States of America.