The New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) is a center for inquiry, research, and policy. NERCHE supports administrators, faculty, and staff across the region in becoming more effective practitioners and leaders as they navigate the complexities of institutional innovation and change.

In 1990, the Nellie Mae Corporation, a nonprofit education-financing company, created the Fund for Education, pioneering philanthropy in the student-loan industry. Over the next eight years, the Fund for Education would provide $5 million in grants to support and advance more than 300 education programs throughout New England. In 1998, the Nellie Mae Foundation was formed; the 1999 purchase of Nellie Mae Corporation by SLM Holding Corporation (Sallie Mae) created the endowment for what is now the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. Now unaffiliated with the Corporation, the Foundation is New England’s largest public charity dedicated to improving academic achievement for the region’s underserved communities.