About ABHE

About ABHE

The Association for Biblical Higher Education in Canada and the United States (ABHE):

• comprises a network of more than 150 institutions of biblical higher education;
• enrolls more than 63,000+ students;
• offers undergraduate and graduate educational opportunities via traditional residential, extension, and distance education modalities;
• encompasses campus locations in 8 time zones stretching from the Canadian Maritimes to Hawaii, from Alaska to Puerto Rico.

Scattered across North America, our member colleges feature diverse histories, ethnicity, and doctrinal/denominational affiliations, indicative of the rich and extraordinary breadth and diversity of higher educational institutions for which Canada and the United States are envied around the world. Our common commitments, however, mark us more deeply and distinctively than our diversity. We are committed to education that is legitimately postsecondary and academically rigorous, challenging students to develop critical thinking skills and leading them in the formation of a biblically grounded Christian worldview. By many significant measures of postsecondary institutional effectiveness—retention and graduation rates; student loan default rates; learning outcomes; success in post-baccalaureate education, and others—our colleges excel the accomplishments many, if not most, of their higher educational peers.

Relatively few graduates of ABHE institutions are well known in marketplace, civic, and political leadership but the imprint of their character and charitable endeavors across the globe excels that of many other higher education sectors. Tens of thousands of ABHE member college alumni serve God as vocational and lay Christian leaders on every continent and in every walk of life. Many serve in church occupations, but many more serve in secular occupations—particularly in the so-called helping professions—with a sense of Christian vocation.

Membership

ABHE seeks actively to strengthen and enlarge its membership by forging an alliance that encompasses any carefully vetted North American postsecondary institution—accredited by ABHE’s Commission on Accreditation or any other USDE/CHEA-recognized accreditor—that shares our association’s purpose, biblical convictions, educational philosophy, and core values.

ABHE membership is extended to:

 Institutions upon whom ABHE’s Commission on Accreditation has acted to confer Accredited or Candidate (pre-accredited) Status. [Note: COA Applicant status is a non-member classification granted to qualifying institutions that, having met the Commission’s Conditions of Eligibility, are actively pursuing accreditation.]

 Institutions accredited by another US Department of Education (USDE) or Council for Higher Education Accreditation- (CHEA) recognized accreditor whose institutional mission and biblical convictions are aligned with those of ABHE. Membership in this category is granted on the basis of a membership committee’s verification of the institution’s missional alignment and its affirmation of the Association’s Tenets of Faith and accompanying biblical social and ethical commitments.

Vision

• Flourishing Institutions. Missional Graduates