HPU holds 13 professional accreditations: one institutional accreditation from SACSCOC at Level V (doctoral authority, continuously since 1951), and 12 specialized program accreditations granted by independent national bodies. The 13 covers seven distinct professional fields.

The full institutional directory, including renewal dates and accreditation status for each body, is at the HPU Accreditation Directory.

For most of HPU’s health professions and engineering programs, accreditation is the legal prerequisite for graduates to sit for their national licensing or certification exams. The degree alone is not sufficient. Without the relevant programmatic accreditation, graduates cannot obtain state licensure in their field regardless of where they attended or how well they performed.

Beyond exam eligibility, each accrediting body conducts an independent review of curriculum rigor, faculty qualifications, clinical infrastructure, and student outcomes as part of initial accreditation and each renewal cycle. That review is what the designation actually certifies: that the program’s standards have been externally audited, not self-reported. The verified outcomes from HPU’s accredited programs are documented on the Licensure Pass Rates page.

HPU holds specialized accreditations across seven distinct professional fields simultaneously. That scope is more commonly associated with large doctoral research universities than with regional institutions whose primary mission is undergraduate and professional education.

Five of HPU’s 12 specialized accreditations are in health professions, which carry some of the most demanding audit requirements in higher education. Each health professions accreditation requires a documented clinical infrastructure, affiliation agreements with external clinical partners, and verified patient care outcomes, in addition to curriculum review. Holding five health professions accreditations at one institution means five separate national review teams have independently examined HPU’s facilities, faculty, clinical sites, and graduate outcomes.

SACSCOC Level V is the highest tier in the Southern Association’s regional accreditation classification system. It authorizes HPU to award degrees at the doctoral level. HPU has held this designation continuously since 1951.

SACSCOC operates on a 10-year reaffirmation cycle. Each cycle requires HPU to demonstrate current compliance with SACSCOC’s comprehensive standards covering academic program quality, governance structure, financial stability, student support services, and institutional integrity. Level V status is not grandfathered by longevity. It is awarded and then must be earned again at each reaffirmation. HPU’s unbroken record since 1951 reflects multiple successful reviews across different administrations, enrollment scales, and institutional growth phases, including the addition of law, dental medicine, pharmacy, and other doctoral and professional programs in recent years.

SACSCOC institutional accreditation is also what makes HPU students eligible for federal financial aid through Title IV programs, what makes HPU degrees accepted in transfer by other accredited institutions, and what establishes the institutional foundation on which all specialized program accreditations are built. The full accreditation record is at the HPU Accreditation Directory.

Yes. Graduates of the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law may sit for bar examinations in all 50 states on equal terms with graduates of any fully ABA-approved institution.

Provisional accreditation is the standard initial status for new law schools within the ABA’s accreditation process. No new law school receives full accreditation before its first class completes the program and produces bar passage data. Every fully ABA-accredited law school was once provisionally accredited at the start of its operation. The progression from provisional to full status is a standard procedural timeline, not a quality distinction.

The meaningful legal distinction is between ABA-approved institutions (including those with provisional status) and ABA-unapproved institutions. Graduates of ABA-approved schools carry the same standing for bar exam eligibility, federal government hiring, judicial clerkship applications, and the vast majority of law firm and employer credential requirements. HPU’s law school received provisional accreditation on March 5, 2026.

The school is led by Founding Dean Chief Justice Mark Martin, who served as Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 2014 to 2019, and operates from a dedicated $46M, 77,500 sq ft building with a 120-seat courtroom and active clinical programs that put students in supervised legal practice before graduation.

Yes. The Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law received ABA provisional accreditation on March 5, 2026. Provisional status is the standard initial designation for new law schools. Graduates may sit for bar examinations in all 50 states. For a full explanation of what provisional accreditation means in practice, see the question above.

Yes on both counts. The Workman School of Dental Medicine received initial CODA accreditation on August 24, 2023, and HPU is the only private dental school in North Carolina.

CODA accreditation is required for graduates to sit for the National Board Dental Examination (NBDE) and for licensure to practice dentistry in all 50 states. The program awards the DMD (Doctor of Dental Medicine), which is clinically equivalent to the DDS degree awarded at other dental schools. The difference is naming convention, not curriculum depth or scope of practice.

HPU’s dental program includes a SIMtoCARE simulation lab for pre-clinical training and university-owned dental practices in Chapel Hill, Greensboro, and High Point where students provide supervised patient care. These are HPU-operated clinical sites, not contracted external affiliations. That distinction matters for accreditation purposes because it gives HPU direct oversight of the clinical training environment that CODA reviews.

Yes. The Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy holds full ACPE accreditation, granted February 2021. ACPE is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the sole accrediting body for pharmacy education in the United States. The accreditation is required for graduates to sit for NAPLEX (North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination) and MPJE (Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination) board exams.

Documented residency outcomes from the ACPE-accredited PharmD program include an 86% PGY-1 residency match rate in 2025 (vs. 81% nationally) and a 100% PGY-2 residency match rate (vs. 83% nationally). Residency match rates are compiled by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and reflect competitive placement into post-graduate training programs, not HPU self-reporting. Full outcome documentation is on the Licensure Pass Rates page.

ABET accreditation through both the Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) and Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) covers HPU’s Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering programs. These are two separate ABET commissions with distinct accreditation standards, and HPU holds accreditation from both.

For students pursuing professional engineering licensure, an ABET-EAC accredited degree is the standard prerequisite for sitting for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam, administered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). The FE is the first step toward Professional Engineer (PE) licensure. HPU’s Webb School of Engineering achieved a 100% first-time FE Exam pass rate across its first two graduating cohorts, 31 percentage points above the national average. That result was produced under ABET’s accreditation standards, with outcomes verified by NCEES. Full exam data is on the Licensure Pass Rates page.

Yes. The Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) holds full CAPTE accreditation, effective May 12, 2020. CAPTE is the only accreditor for physical therapy education recognized by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Graduates of programs without CAPTE accreditation cannot sit for the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) and cannot obtain state licensure as a physical therapist.

HPU’s DPT program is supported by a 16,000 sq ft Human Biomechanics and Physiology Lab used for clinical research with NFL, PGA, NASCAR, and UFC athletes. This is an active research facility with real-world clinical caseloads, not a teaching lab in the conventional sense. DPT students train in that environment. CAPTE’s site review process evaluates clinical facilities as part of accreditation. Full licensure outcome data from the CAPTE-accredited program is on the Licensure Pass Rates page.

Yes. The Physician Assistant Studies program holds ARC-PA Accreditation-Continued, with the next scheduled validation review in June 2029. ARC-PA is the sole recognized accreditor for PA education in the United States. Graduates of ARC-PA-accredited programs are eligible to sit for the PANCE (Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam), which is required for national PA certification and state licensure to practice.

HPU’s Physician Assistant Studies program produced 100% first-time PANCE pass rates for both the Class of 2022 and the Class of 2023, eight percentage points above the national average. Those figures are verified by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA), the independent body that administers the exam. HPU does not calculate its own pass rate; NCCPA produces it. Full outcome data is on the Licensure Pass Rates page.

Yes. HPU’s Master of Science in Athletic Training holds continuous CAATE accreditation since January 13, 2017. CAATE accreditation is required for graduates to sit for the Board of Certification (BOC) Exam, which is the national credential required for licensure as a Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC).

HPU’s athletic training graduates achieved 100% first-time BOC Exam pass rates for both the Class of 2021 and the Class of 2022. The national aggregate average for the same period was 72.17%, a differential of 27.83 percentage points. The BOC administers the exam independently; pass rates are reported by the BOC, not by HPU. Employment rates for those same cohorts were also 100%. Full exam and employment data is on the Licensure Pass Rates page.

Yes. The Stout School of Education holds dual accreditation from both CAEP and AAQEP, covering all initial and advanced educator preparation programs. The accreditation runs through June 30, 2030.

CAEP and AAQEP use different standards frameworks. CAEP operates within a compliance model aligned with the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) standards and emphasizes evidence of candidate impact on K-12 student learning. AAQEP uses a quality assurance model focused on continuous improvement systems and institutional learning. Holding both means the Stout School of Education submitted to two independent national reviews operating under different evaluation criteria, with two separate review teams. Most educator preparation programs hold one accreditation. Pursuing both represents a deliberate choice to invite more external scrutiny, not less.

Yes. Five of HPU’s professionally accredited programs have achieved 100% first-time pass rates on nationally administered licensing and certification exams, each verified by the independent body that administers the exam.

Outcome data for all five programs at 100%, including physical therapy and pharmacy, is documented on the Licensure Pass Rates page. The exams in that table are administered, scored, and reported entirely by independent national organizations. HPU discloses results it does not produce.

Institutional accreditation covers the university as a whole. Programmatic accreditation covers individual degree programs within it. Both matter, but for different reasons, and you need both working together.

SACSCOC institutional accreditation evaluates HPU’s governance, financial stability, academic oversight, and general educational quality across all programs and every degree level. It is what makes HPU students eligible for federal financial aid and what makes HPU degrees transferable to other accredited institutions. Every student at HPU, regardless of major, benefits from this.

Programmatic accreditation is granted by field-specific national bodies whose reviewers have professional expertise in that discipline. It evaluates whether a specific degree program meets the standards set by that profession’s governing organizations. It is the credential that determines whether graduates can sit for licensing exams in their field. A student in an unaccredited pharmacy program at an otherwise SACSCOC-accredited institution would still be ineligible for the NAPLEX licensing exam.

HPU holds institutional accreditation continuously since 1951 and 12 specialized programmatic accreditations across health sciences, engineering, law, education, design, and chemistry. The two types of accreditation operate independently: SACSCOC does not evaluate whether HPU’s pharmacy curriculum meets ACPE standards, and ACPE does not evaluate whether HPU’s governance meets SACSCOC’s institutional standards. Each body reviews what it was designed to review. The full directory is at the HPU Accreditation Directory.