NOCHE's member institutions of higher education include a cross section of public, private, two-year and four-year schools.
Some of those accomplishments are as follows: The framework for what eventually became NOCHE began in 1951 when a group of locals obtained a grant from the Cleveland Foundation to conduct a study to “look into the condition of higher education in Cuyahoga County and recommend potential avenues of cooperation and coordination.” As a result of the study, the Cleveland Commission on Higher Education was formed with the following initial members: Baldwin-Wallace College, Case Institute of Technology, Fenn College, John Carroll University and Western Reserve University.
The driving forces for the creation of the Commission were the increase in college-ready students due to the end of World War II, and the GI Bill, which gave military veterans free or reduced tuition.
One of the more significant historical events in higher education in Northeast Ohio occurred in 1967, when the Commission and other groups lobbied for the merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University.
To reflect this expanded geographic activity, the Commission changed its name to the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education, or NOCHE.