ABSTRACT
As an administrator or potential administrator within the higher education sector, it is important to understand what this industry looks like and how its operations differ by institutional type. This chapter discusses the organizational structures within higher education in United States, segmenting the institutions into distinct categories. The general organizational structure of individual institutions of higher education is bureaucratic in nature and typically has a well-established hierarchy. Each institution of higher education has some type of governing board to which the president or chancellor reports. Research-oriented universities can be public or private and are typically the largest universities within each state. While there may be some large, non-research institutions present, their institutional structures tend to closely approximate those of the research institutions. For-profit or proprietary colleges and universities represent the fastest-growing sector within the postsecondary education industry. One of the primary reasons that for-profit institutions can actually generate a profit is that they are adept at keeping their costs down.
