Accreditation is a process of external quality review used by higher education education to scrutinize colleges, universities, and educational programs for quality assurance and quality improvement. In the United States, accreditation is carried out by private, nonprofit organizations designed for this specific purpose. Institutions and educational programs seek accredited status as a means of demonstrating their academic quality to students and the public and to become eligible for federal funds. Numbers of accredited Institutions are as follows: (1) 7,818 institutions are accredited, and (2) 22,654 programs are accredited. These institutions and programs are accredited by organizations recognized either by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) or by organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education (USDE). CHEA or USDE "recognition" is a review of the quality and effectiveness of accrediting organizations based on the respective standards of CHEA or USDE. Of the 7,818 institutions: (1) 4,921 (63%) are degree-granting; (2) 2,897 (37%) are non-degree-granting; (3) 3,909 (50%) are nonprofit; and (4) 3,909 (50%) are for-profit. 7,178 accredited institutions were certified to participate in the federal Title IV (Student Assistance) Program in 2010-2011. Of those institutions, 2,043 were public, 1,869 were private non-profit, and 3,266 were for-profit. If an institution participates in Title IV, students have the opportunity to apply for federal grants and loans to finance their education. Accreditation serves the following purposes: (1) Quality Assurance; (2) Access to Federal Funds; (3) Ease of Transfer; and (4) Private Sector Confidence. CHEA's primary purpose is to assure and strengthen academic quality and ongoing quality improvement in courses, programs, and degrees. USDE's primary purpose is to assure that federal student aid funds are purchasing quality courses and programs. (Provides 5 footnotes.)