New England Association of Schools and Colleges

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. (NEASC) is the U.S. regional accreditation association providing educational accreditation for all levels of education, from pre-kindergarten to the doctoral level, in the six-state New England region. It also provides accreditation for some international schools, particularly at the elementary and secondary levels. Founded in 1885, it is the oldest of the regional accreditors in the United States.

NEASC serves more than 2000 public and independent schools, colleges and universities in the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. As of 2011, the NEASC counted 253 degree-granting colleges, universities, and other post-secondary institutions, and 86 vocational-technical schools in its membership. The association's Commission on Public Secondary Schools had 650 member schools in the six-state New England region, including 641 accredited schools and nine candidates for accreditation. The Commission on Independent Schools had 615 members in New England and Canada, including 577 accredited schools and 38 candidate schools. Membership also included about 106 accredited public elementary and middle schools in New England and 175 accredited American/International schools in 68 nations around the world.

The NEASC is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Famous quotes containing the words england, association, schools and/or colleges:

    “Why should the generations overlap one another at all? Why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in Bank of England notes, and wake up, as the Sphinx wasp does, to find that its papa and mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before we began to live consciously on our own accounts?”
    —Samuel Butler (1835–1902)

    “An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.”
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    “In truth, the legitimate contention is, not of one age or school of literary art against another, but of all successive schools alike, against the stupidity which is dead to the substance, and the vulgarity which is dead to form.”
    —Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    “The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”
    —Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)