Middle States Self-Study 2025-2026

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education is our accrediting body. This is a group composed of leaders in higher education who work with universities and other stakeholders to ensure universities receiving federal funding operate healthfully and in the direction of the stated mission, vision, and values.

Without MSCHE’s continued accreditation of ESU, we would be unable to accept federal financial aid funding, accept in or transfer out credits to another institution, nor make students eligible for specialized professional licenses (nursing, education, etc.).

Exactly what it sounds like—our own review of the efficacy and efficiency. This review must be based on evidence, with required artifacts to demonstrate that what we say we do is, in fact, what we are actually doing.

While the full team has not yet been announced, we know that it will be composed of peers from similar institutions. Dr. Joe Bertolino, President of Stockton University, is our MSCHE Evaluation Team Chair and will visit the university on October 28, 2025, to conduct preliminary meetings with faculty, staff, and students.

Yes. Every 8 years.

We are currently editing the draft of the full document, which is based on the MSCHE Standards for Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation, 14th Edition. Our answers to the criteria are collated into a narrative document describing process, outcomes, and recommendations, all supported by evidential documentation.

That document, once reviewed by the entire university, is submitted to the MSCHE Evaluation Team. This team is made up of peers from institutions within MSCHE who have been trained in how to conduct a site visit. The team will visit with students, faculty, staff, leadership, and the steering team to discuss the document, its findings, and the process of its creation. Our Evaluation Team site visit is scheduled for early March 2026.

MSCHE accreditation is at the institutional level, so while the reaccreditation is vital to allowing us to seek specialized accreditation at the program level, MSCHE accreditation does not itself accredit specialized programs.

Middle States Standards for Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation

Yes, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education considers student learning to be a very important matter in the accreditation process.

Four principles guided the development of the MSCHE’s Standards for Accreditation:

• The mission-centric standards acknowledge the diversity of institutions;
• The focus of the standards is on the student learning experience;
• The standards emphasize institutional assessment and assessment of student learning; and
• The standards support innovation as an essential part of continuous institutional improvement.

No. American colleges and universities are so varied in their purposes, types of programs offered, and students served that it is not possible to offer a valid general ranking of institutions based on educational quality.

While accreditation does not provide a basis for ranking institutions of higher education, it does seek to strengthen and sustain the quality and integrity of institutions. In each instance, a college or university is judged by how effectively it meets its stated mission and the Commission’s standards.

The MSCHE does not endorse any third-party platforms and/or tool.

No. The selection of a college is an individual decision.

The U.S. Department of Education provides many useful tools for interested individuals to get started in addition to many directory, rating, and information sites.

The Preamble to the MSCHE’sStandards for Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation (adopted 2014) states, “An institution of higher education is a community dedicated to students, to the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, to the study and clarification of values, and to the advancement of the society it serves. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, through accreditation, mandates that its member institutions meet rigorous and comprehensive standards, which are addressed in the context of the mission of each institution and within the culture of ethical practices and institutional integrity expected of accredited institutions. In meeting the quality standards of MSCHE accreditation, institutions earn accredited status, and this permits them to state with confidence, “Our students are well-served, society is well-served.”

Each institution makes its own decisions about transfer credits, and it may take into account a variety of factors, such as how well the credits students earned at another institution fit the requirements for the program they wish to pursue, the comparability of learning goals for the courses at the other institution, the grades students received in the courses they took, whether the college they attended is accredited, and other factors that vary from one institution to another.

The only way to determine which credits (if any) a college or university will accept is to contact the institution directly. Students who know in advance that they may wish to transfer to another institution should contact the receiving institution as soon as possible about the transferability of credits.

For further information about transfer, consult the MSCHE policy Transfer Credit, Prior Learning, and Articulation found in the Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines section.

The closing institution arranges with the state department of higher education or other appropriate agency to file all academic records as well as financial aid information. If the college merges with another institution, arrangements are made with that institution to receive the records. Students should receive a notice from the college about any arrangements made for filing student records.

Sometimes students wish to know about where their records are filed, long after an institution has closed. In that case, students should begin their inquiries by contacting the higher education agency in the state where the institution was authorized.