As a group, urban-oriented colleges and universities have a number of common features. They are located in the inner cities of the major metropolitan areas of the country and are fundamentally community-and service-oriented. Some are community colleges, other are four-year colleges and universities, and still others are complex systems providing programs at all educational levels. Whether public or private, they are largely nonresidential. Their primary purpose is to educate the local resident population, particularly at the undergraduate level, and their enrollments reflect that orientation. Generally, they are not highly prestigious or highly selective in their admissions—in fact, many are committed to a policy of open admissions. For the most part, they do not have national reputations or many students drawn from beyond the city's limits. Although some have excellent graduate and professional programs, most of their students are undergraduates of widely varying ages, attendance patterns, and educational needs. They include working adults, members of minorities, poor people, persons with low levels of educational preparedness, and, increasingly, immigrants whose native language is not English.

The heterogeneity of their student bodies and the numbers of part-time and educationally disadvantaged students they serve can cause these institutions to have complex educational processes. They are required to work much more extensively in the remediation of basic skills than are other institutions of higher education. Because of a large influx of new immigrants into some urban centers, the educational institutions there are heavily involved in teaching English as a second language, in bilingual education, or in both.

Because the phrase "urban-oriented colleges and universities" is not precise in its meaning, it is difficult if not impossible to know the exact number of institutions that fall into this category. But we know there are some 300 in U.S. cities with populations of at least 100,000