The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) is a United States organization of degree-granting colleges and universities. It identifies its purpose as providing national advocacy for self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation in order to certify the quality of higher education accrediting organizations, including regional, faith-based, private, career, and programmatic accrediting organizations. The organization has approximately 3,000 academic institutions as members, and currently recognizes approximately 60 accrediting organizations. CHEA is based in Washington, DC.