The State Higher Education Executive Officers is the national association of the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education. Founded in 1954, SHEEO serves its members as an advocate for state policy leadership, as a liaison between states and the federal government, as a vehicle for learning from and collaborating with peers, as a manager of multistate teams to initiate new programs, and as a source of information and analysis on educational and public policy issues. SHEEO seeks to advance public policies and educational practices to achieve more widespread access to and completion of higher education, more discoveries through research, and more applications of knowledge that improve the quality of human lives.

SHEEO currently has 61 members in all 50 states, two territories,and the District of Columbia.

To fulfill its mission, SHEEO:

  • Presents the SHEEO Higher Education Policy Conference and Preconference State Agency Workshop, national convenings held in August each year; and the SHEEO Annual Meeting held in July.
  • Hosts other informational, professional development, and collaborative meetings with state and higher education leaders.
  • Maintains regular systems of communication among the professional staffs of member agencies.
  • Studies higher education policy issues and state activities and publishes reports to inform the field.
  • Implements projects to enhance the capacity of the states and SHEEO agencies to improve higher education.
  • Focuses its efforts on key theme areas, including college readiness, student progress to completion, student learning, connections to workforce and society, and service to members and the higher education community.

Recent SHEEO projects include:

  • The annual study and publication of state funding and tuition policy, SHEF: FY 2015State Higher Education Finance (to be updated in spring 2017)
  • Publication of The State of State Postsecondary Data Systems: Strong Foundations 2016, updated from July 2010
  • With the National Association of System Heads, publication of a letter to 2016 U.S. presidential nominees featured in Change magazine’sSeptember/October 2016 issue.

Current projects and funding include:

  • The Multi-State Collaborative to Advance Quality Student Learning (MSC) initiative is designed to provide meaningful evidence about how well students are achieving important learning outcomes aligned with work and life success, assessing students’ regular college work by using common rubrics applied by teams of faculty from dozens of colleges and universities in 13 states.
  • With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, SHEEO continues its work on assessing the use of state data systems and highlighting exemplars to increase student success in postsecondary education by focusing on and sharing best practices in state-level data gathering and use.
  • With support from Lumina Foundation, SHEEO is working on initiatives for adult promise programs in five states, and is performing a comprehensive qualitative analysis of state tuition and fee rate-setting in the 50 states.
  • Engaging with five states and an Historically Black College or University in each state to recruit and mentor minority male teacher educator candidates (supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation).