The United States is a federal republic with a decentralized system of education. The titles and designations of U.S. study programs and types or levels of educational institutions are not set forth in law or protected or reserved, and therefore may vary from place to place.
Program content and the name of the subject concentration often varies from institution to institution, so U.S. educators and employers usually examine student records in order to determine what an individual has in fact studied and what they are qualified to do at the degree level which they have completed.
A few degrees in professional subjects are closely regulated by state governments and professional associations and have uniform content if awarded by an accredited institution. U.S. educators and employers do not evaluate quality on the basis of fixed assumptions about uniform content, but rather on a case-by-case basis using standard assessment approaches to analyze often quite different individual situations.
