Terms & Conditions

The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) website (including www.neche.org and all subdomains, hereafter referenced as the “NECHE website”), including all information, software, products and services available from the NECHE website or offered as part of or in conjunction with the NECHE website, is made available to you, the user, conditioned upon your acceptance of all of the terms, conditions, policies and notices stated here.

Your continued use of the NECHE website constitutes your agreement to all of these Terms and Conditions, and any changes to the Terms and Conditions made by NECHE. NECHE may revise these Terms and Conditions from time to time by updating this posting, with the new terms taking effect on the date of posting. You should review these Terms and Conditions every time you use the NECHE website because they are binding on you.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET FORTH HERE, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE NECHE WEBSITE.

General Terms

We may offer certain products, services and memberships on the NECHE website that are subject to additional or different terms and conditions. We will notify you if the service you are using on the NECHE website is subject to terms and conditions that differ from these Terms and Conditions.

You agree that we have the right and discretion to monitor any activity and content associated with the NECHE website and Website Content. We may investigate any reported violation of these Terms and Conditions, and may take any action that we believe is appropriate including, but not limited to, removing materials from the NECHE website and terminating/suspending your access to the NECHE website.

If we modify these Terms and Conditions, then such modifications shall take effect proactively, upon your subsequent access to the NECHE website.

These Terms and Conditions shall not be assignable by you, either in whole or in part. We reserve the right to assign the rights and obligations under these Terms and Conditions for any reason and in our sole discretion.

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without giving effect to its conflicts of law provisions. Both parties submit to the personal jurisdiction of and venue in, the state and federal courts sitting in the judicial district that includes Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The parties further agree that any cause of action arising under these Terms and Conditions shall exclusively be brought in such courts. If any provision of these Terms and Conditions is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. Our failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. These Terms and Conditions set forth the entire understanding and agreement between you and us with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersede any prior or contemporaneous understanding, whether written or oral.

You agree that in the event that you have any right, claim or action against visitors or other users of the NECHE website arising out of that person’s use of the NECHE website, then you will pursue such right, claim or action independently of and without recourse to us.

Certain areas of the NECHE website are accessible only to users that have a username and password. If you obtain a username and password, please keep in mind that we will treat anyone who uses your username and password as “you.” We will provide this user with all of the rights and privileges that we provide to you, and we will hold you responsible for user activities associated with your username and password. We therefore recommend that you maintain your username and password in confidence, and that you refrain from disclosing this information to anyone who might “pretend” to be you with respect to your use of the NECHE website. We also recommend that you notify us immediately if you suspect that someone is using your username and password in this manner.

All information, software, artwork, trademarks, text, video, audio, pictures, logos, and other content on the NECHE website or embodied in our services, including all associated intellectual property rights (collectively, the “Website Content“), is the property of NECHE and its licensors, or is used under principles of fair use. NECHE retains all rights with respect to the NECHE website and Website Content except those expressly granted to you in these Terms and Conditions.

Based on your agreement to comply with these Terms and Conditions, we grant you the right to access and use all publicly available portions of our NECHE Website and Website Content and, if expressly authorized, password-protected areas of the NECHE website and Website Content in order to: (i) learn more about NECHE and the services we offer; (ii) download and print pages from the NECHE website onto one (1) computer hard drive; and (iii) make payments to NECHE (via a third party vendor) (collectively, the “Permitted Purposes”). You may only participate in the Permitted Purposes for your noncommercial use.

You shall not: (i) license, sublicense, sell, resell, distribute or otherwise commercially exploit the NECHE website or Website Content to any third party; (ii) modify or make derivative works based upon the NECHE website and Website Content; or (iii) reverse engineer, reverse compile, or access the NECHE website and Website Content in order to build a competitive product or service. As a condition to your continued use of the NECHE website, you warrant to NECHE that you will not use the NECHE website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms and Conditions.

The NECHE website does not provide the functionality for you to submit content for public posting on the Site. However, if you submit content (other than Feedback) to us by email, we will only use the information and any content you provide to us for the purpose of responding to your email. To the extent you do submit content (including, but not limited to, Feedback), you represent and warrant that you own the submitted content (including intellectual property rights therein (if any)) or that you have obtained sufficient authority and right in and to the submitted content in order to allow NECHE to use the submitted content. You further agree to hold us harmless if you violate this representation and warranty.

By providing feedback, comments, ideas or suggestions about the NECHE website and services (collectively, “Feedback“), you authorize us to use and exploit your Feedback in any manner, and without compensation to you, for as long as we deem warranted. You acknowledge and agree that (i) that you have no expectation of review, compensation or consideration of any type for the Feedback, and (ii) we will be free to use and exploit such Feedback in our discretion and without compensation or obligation to you.

In addition to your other obligations under these Terms and Conditions, you agree that you shall not do any of the following:

Upload, email, or otherwise transmit any images or other content that are unlawful, obscene, harmful, hateful, invade the privacy of any third party, contain nudity or pornography, or are otherwise objectionable.

Disseminate materials that impact or invade the privacy of others, such as photographs, video clips, sound recordings, personally identifiable information, or other materials that reveal personal, private, or sensitive information about another person, without that person’s consent.

Submit material that is intentionally false, defamatory, unlawfully threatening, or unlawfully harassing.

Infringe any third party’s copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary rights or rights of publicity or privacy. Electronic materials – such as music, videos, games, images, and text in electronic form – can easily be copied, modified, and sent over networks (such as the Internet). These electronic materials are thus extremely vulnerable to unauthorized distribution and copyright infringement. These materials may not be transmitted over the NECHE website without the copyright owner’s permission, or without a legitimate “fair use” justification for the transmittal.

Use the NECHE website in a manner that could disable, overburden or impair the NECHE website or interfere with any other parties’ use and enjoyment of the NECHE Website.

Seek to obtain access to material or information that we have not intentionally made available to you on the NECHE website through “hacking,” “scraping,” or other means.

Transmit material through the NECHE website that you know or should know contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer-programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously Page 4 of 7 intercept or expropriate any system, data or Personally Identifiable Information (as that term is defined in the NECHE Privacy Policy).

Use the NECHE website to artificially generate traffic or page links to a website or for any other purpose not expressly allowed under these Terms and Conditions.

Use the NECHE website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms and Conditions. For example, you will not use the NECHE website or Website Content to violate any law, statute, or regulation (including, without limitation, those governing securities regulation, consumer protection, unfair competition, anti-discrimination, or false advertising).

The foregoing prohibited actions constitute NECHE’s website Code of Conduct. We reserve the right at any time to terminate or suspend your use of some or all of the NECHE website if you engage in activities that we conclude, in our sole discretion, breach our Code of Conduct or otherwise violate these Terms and Conditions or our Privacy Policy.

The NECHE website may contain hyperlinks to Web sites offered by parties other than NECHE. Such hyperlinks are provided for your reference and convenience only. NECHE does not control such other Web sites and is not responsible for their content, nor does NECHE’s inclusion of hyperlinks to such Web sites imply any endorsement of the material on such Web sites or any association with their operators. Moreover, we do not warrant that a third-party site will be free of computer viruses or other harmful code that can impact your computer or other web-access device. If you link to any third-party site through the NECHE website or Website Content, please be aware that you are doing so at your own risk. These Terms and Conditions apply solely to the NECHE website and you should review the terms and conditions of any site that you access through a hyperlink from the NECHE website.

NECHE does not promise that the NECHE website or website content will be error-free, uninterrupted, or without inaccuracies, or that the NECHE website will provide specific results from your use of the NECHE website or your use of any content, search, or link on it. The NECHE website and website content, are all provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not represent or warrant that the NECHE website, website content, or files you may download from the NECHE website will be free of viruses, inaccuracies, or other harmful features.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, NECHE disclaims: (i) all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement; (ii) any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, or legality of information or content available through the NECHE website; and (iii) any responsibility or liability for harm resulting from downloading or accessing information or content through the NECHE website, including harm caused by viruses or similar destructive features. You expressly agree that use of the NECHE website and related content is at your sole risk.

Under no circumstances including, but not limited to breach of contract, tort, or negligence, will NECHE be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, punitive, exemplary, or consequential damages (including lost profits) that arise out of, or are related to, your use of the NECHE website or website content.

Contact Us

We welcome your feedback or suggestions. Please contact us at:

New England Commission of Higher Education
3 Burlington Woods Drive, Suite 100
Burlington, Massachusetts 01803

Tel: 781-425-7785

Hearing impaired users may use any Telecommunication Relay Service to reach NECHE. In the United States users may call 711 (for relay services: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/telecommunications-relay-service-trs).

International callers may use whatever Telecommunication Relay Services with a CA (Communication Assistant) are available in the country where they are located.

Complete Agreement

These Terms and Conditions must be read in conjunction with our Privacy Statement, and the provisions of our Privacy Statement are incorporated herein. To the extent that the Privacy Statement conflicts with the terms of these Terms and Conditions, the terms of the Privacy Statement shall control. Please note that these Terms and Conditions only apply to your use of the NECHE Website.

Effective Date: December 2019.

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