This paper provides an overview of the United States higher education system. It gives readers introductory information about the size, scope and governance model of US higher education. This is a challenging task because higher education in the US is highly decentralized with no single 'system' coordinating all institutions of higher education (IHEs). Instead, 50 states, the federal government and dozens of accreditation agencies create a policy ecosystem that supports both public and private institutions of higher education. The US has no national university, no national agency overseeing all of higher education, no national policy on what professors can or cannot teach. There are no national price controls establishing how much tuition institutions can charge. And there is no national admissions policy sorting students into institutions. [This paper was coproduced by the Richmond American University London.]