Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

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Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

MSA logo
MSA operational area
Abbreviation	MSA-CESS
Formation	1887
Legal status	Association
Purpose	Educational accreditation
Headquarters	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Region served	The United States and over 100 countries world-wide
Main organ	Board of Trustees
Website	msa-cess.org

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, also referred to as Middle States Association or MSA, is a voluntary, peer-based, Philadelphia-based non-profit association that performs peer evaluation and regional accreditation of public and private schools in the Mid-Atlantic United States and certain foreign institutions of American origin.

The association includes three separate commissions:

• Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
• Middle States Commission on Elementary Schools (MSCES)
• Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools (MSCSS)

The higher education commission, MSCHE, and the other two commissions now operate independently. The MSCES and the MSCSS operate together as an organization sometimes known as the MSA-CESS. The accreditation of post-secondary schools by the MSCSS is limited to those that do not confer degrees or offer technical programs.^[1]