About Accreditation
Accreditation is a voluntary, non-governmental process of self-regulation of higher education that serves two purposes: assuring the public of quality and fostering institutional improvement. The Commission’s Standards for Accreditation establish criteria for institutional quality. The Standards are essentially qualitative criteria that measure the institution’s current state of educational effectiveness. They allow the Commission to appraise a wide variety of collegiate institutions, differing in purpose, size, organization, scope of program, clientele served, support, and control. The non-prescriptive nature of the Standards is meant to encourage innovation aimed at increasing the effectiveness of higher education.
Accredited colleges and universities demonstrate their integrity through their continued voluntary compliance with the Standards for Accreditation. This system of accreditation is based on institutions agreeing to participate in and to accept and profit by an honest and forthright assessment of institutional strengths and weaknesses. Further information about the Role and Value of Accreditation is available here:
Council for Higher Education Accreditation: http://www.chea.org
U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov
U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov
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