The Association for Biblical Higher Education

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The Association for Biblical Higher Education or ABHE (formerly the The Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges or AABC) is a nationally recognized accrediting agency in the United States. It is recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. The ABHE is creed based and requires annual affirmation statements to a particular creed that is not pluralistic.

The Association is full member of the International Council of Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE)^[1]. operating under the auspices of the World Evangelical Alliance.

Incorporated in the State of Illinois as a not-for-profit corporation, the Association is exempt from income tax under the provisions of section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.

ABHE is operated by its member institutions through a board of directors, members of which are elected at an annual business meeting. Accrediting decisions are made by the Commission on Accreditation. The Association’s public accountability is underscored by the requirement that both the Board of Directors and the Commission on Accreditation must include public representatives among its members. The Association is administered by a full-time Executive Director and supported by a corps of professional staff.

According to ABHE's annual membership handbook, there were 33,200 undergraduates and 2,500 graduate students registered in over 135 colleges/universities across North America in the 2005/2006 academic year.

1 History
2 Compared
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

The organization that is now the ABHE was founded in 1947 as the Accrediting Association of Bible Institutes and Bible Colleges. The name was shortened in 1957 to the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges. From 1973 to 1994 the organization was called the American Association of Bible Colleges, but the name Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges was restored in 1994. In 2004 the name of the organization changed to the Association for Biblical Higher Education "in order to reflect its expansion of scope with graduate education accreditation and programmatic accreditation."^[2]

Currently, there are 140 bible schools with ties to the ABHE, which operates for the purpose of setting academic standards for seminaries and Bible colleges, and evaluates and monitors compliance among its candidate and member schools. ABHE should not be confused with regional accreditation.

[edit] Compared

Although faith-based national accreditors may have earned USDE and CHEA recognition, their accreditation is not automatically reciprocated by regional (or other) agencies or their accredited institutions. Contrary to the principles laid out in CHEA’s Transfer and the Public Interest: A Statement to the Community (1998), many institutions continue to base transfer credit decisions solely or primarily upon accreditation, regional accreditation in particular. Since all recognized accrediting agencies must meet USDE and CHEA recognition criteria, many of ABHE’s standards correspond to those of regional accreditors. In fact, a substantial percentage of ABHE-accredited US institutions are also accredited by the appropriate regional agency. ABHE typically engages in joint or coordinated peer review visits with regional accrediting agencies where both agencies accredit the same institution. ABHE accreditation, however, does not guarantee regional accreditation and vice versa. Each agency is responsible to conduct a bona fide peer review of institutions seeking accreditation and in some cases ABHE-accredited institutions have sought unsuccessfully to achieve regional accreditation. For example, Trinity College of Florida is Association for Biblical Higher Education-accredited.^[3] Trinity applied for regional accreditation from Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), but was rejected in December 2005. SACS reviewed the college and rejected the application for accreditation because "Trinity College of Florida failed to provide information demonstrating its compliance with Core Requirement 2.5 (Institutional Effectiveness), Core Requirement 2.7.1 (Program Length), Core Requirement 2.7.2 (Program Content), Core Requirement 2.8 (Faculty), Comprehensive Standard 3.7.1 (Faculty), and Core Requirement 2.9 (Learning Resources and Services) of the Principles of Accreditation.[1] In some cases, ABHE has applied sanctions or taken negative action relative to one of its accredited institutions for failure to comply with one or more standards, yet the regional agency has not undertaken similar action.