ABHE Doctorates?

Does anyone know off hand what type of doctoral degrees ABHE can accredit under their approval from the US Department of Education/CHEA?

 

According to their website:

The agency’s scope of recognition (i.e., for the purpose of participation in U.S. Higher Education Act financial aid programs) includes the accreditation and pre‐accreditation (“Candidate Status”) of institutions of biblical higher education offering undergraduate certificates, associate degrees, baccalaureate degrees, graduate certificates, and master’s degrees... (Emphasis added)

Doctoral degrees are not mentioned.

According to CHEA:

CHEA Recognized Scope of Accreditation

Institutions and programs in the United States, Canada and related territories that offer certificates, diplomas, associate, baccalaureate or graduate degrees aimed at preparing students for Christian ministries through Biblical, church-vocational and general studies.

That sounds like through the master's. It differs from DEAC:

The accreditation of higher learning institutions in the United States and international locations that offer programs of study that are delivered primarily by distance (51 percent or more) and award credentials at the associate, baccalaureate, master’s, first professional and professional doctoral degree level. (Emphasis added.)

Yet....a search on ABHE's website filtered for schools offering the doctorate turn up two:

Dallas Baptist University
Faith Theological Seminary of Catonsville

• DBU offers three doctorates. But...they are also accredited by SACS and their ABHE accreditation is listed as "programmatic."
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• FTS of Catonsville offers two doctorates. But...they are not accredited by ABHE and are listed as an "applicant institution." One would think they'd either have to obtain other institutional accreditation to retain the doctoral programs or to drop them. This is what DEAC applicant schools had to do once they were accredited. So, a school like California Coast University offered doctorates up until they were accredited by DEAC, then dropped them. When DEAC's scope was increased to include professional doctorates, CCU added them back.

So...none.

 

Very interesting. I vaguely thought they were exploring accrediting doctoral programs (a few years ago). Couldn't find anything and assumed perhaps it would be professional doctorates like DEAC (which would lend itself to EdD, DMin, DRE, etc). Apparently not.

That means a school could become accredited but only to a certain level with other programs not within the scope of accreditation.

 

Beulah Heights University offers a PhD in Organizational Leadership and a DMin. They’re accredited by both TRACS and ABHE.
https://beulah.edu/academics/doctoral-programs/phd-doctor-of-philosophy/

 

To the extent that its accreditor will tolerate this. I don't believe the regionals do, for example.