About Us
About - The United States Higher Education Department
On March 1, 2013, the Mid-Atlantic Region Department on Higher Education, often known as The United States Higher Education Department (USHED), was formally founded under Pennsylvania Commonwealth law. The Department was a division of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools from 1919 until February 2013. It is currently an independent entity.
USHED is a voluntary, non-governmental membership organization that defines, maintains, and promotes educational quality among institutions with varying missions, student populations, and resources.
Since USHED is an institutional accreditor, we analyze institutions as a whole as opposed to individual programs. USHED provides members with education, quality assurance, and other services.
USHED conducts accreditation and pre-accreditation (candidate status) activities for institutions of higher education in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and any other geographic areas where the Department elects to conduct accrediting activities, including the evaluation of distance and correspondence education programs offered by these institutions. USHED accredits colleges both domestically and internationally. Click here to learn more about USHED's global footprint.
USHED is recognized by the United States Department of Education, and its Bylaws outline the following objectives:
- To function as an accreditation agency approved by the U.S. Department of Education to provide voluntary, non-governmental peer review;
- Contribute to the regulatory triangle by collaborating with the U.S. Department of Education and state agencies that serve USHED applicant, accredited, and candidate institutions;
- Support the accreditation activities of USHED applicant, accredited, and candidate institutions by collaborating with other relevant government authorities and international agencies;
- To act and make judgments about the applicant, accreditation or candidate for accreditation status, or the extent of accreditation of member institutions, and to take additional administrative activities in accordance with policy;
- To assure students and the general public of the educational quality of higher education and to ensure institutional accountability, self-evaluation, improvement, and innovation through peer review and the rigorous application of standards within the context of the institution's mission, and
- Learn more about the Commission's recognition by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) here.
Learn more about the Commission's recognition by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) here.