Mission and Purpose
The Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) is a first-in-kind accrediting entity founded by six university systems: the State University System of Florida, the University System of Georgia, the University of North Carolina System, the University of South Carolina System, the Texas A&M University System, and the University of Tennessee System. CPHE will leverage its all-public membership model to focus on student outcomes and maximize efficiency in accreditation processes without sacrificing quality.
CPHE’s mission is to advance the quality and improvement of higher education by accrediting and pre-accrediting state public colleges and universities that are incorporated, chartered, licensed, or authorized in the United States. CPHE will serve as the institutional accrediting agency for state public colleges and universities that award associates, bachelor’s and/or higher degrees.
In advancing its mission, CPHE will be guided by the following core principles:
- A return to true peer-review – for publics, by publics: Public Universities share similarities in governance, financial models, and mission that make them peers of one another to a much greater degree than an institution from another sector that happens to be geographically close.
- A focus on student outcomes, not inputs: With a focus on transparent, publicly available data, CPHE will be a partner, not a hindrance, to governing boards and other policymakers who seek to emphasize student outcomes.
- A reduction of unnecessary bureaucracy, opacity, and expense: CPHE will meet the requirements to achieve recognition as an institutional accreditor by the U.S. Department of Education. In doing so, it will leverage the fact that its membership is exclusively public to build more efficient standards and procedures.