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I guess its field related. Many engineering employers check to see if the engineering program is accredited by ABET. Some employers who have smaller or less educated human resource departements may only look at the university and how prominent it is. That type of checking is flawed though because in many cases, the prominence is just perception about the school. The school in many cases has no better education than other schools or offers nothing more than the name of the school.
In engineering, ABET is pretty much required. My state requires it for licensure. This is different from general business in that this is a licensed field. Right now, the only licensed field I can think of that requires a business-related degree is public accounting. I don't know of one state that requires programmatic accreditation in order to sit for the CPA exam. Some states have made it a little bit easier to meet specific requirements for those with AACSB or ACBSP-accredited degrees. Easier as in you don't have to worry about meeting specific curriculum requirements because programmatically-accredited degrees are already designed to meet them.
This is all excellent information. I would like to add that if you (general "you") ever plan on pursuing a Masters degree in a business field (MBA, MSA, MAcc, etc), the AACSB status of your undergraduate university can and will come into play. AACSB and ACBSP are really not comparable. Looking through the list of ACBSP schools, there are an awful lot of for-profits with poor reputations: DeVry, Kaplan, Keller School of Mgmt, Strayer, Webster, UoP, Walden, a ton of community colleges, and quite a few unranked / low-ranked colleges. Look at the list of institutions accredited by the AACSB: Babson, Columbia, Bentley, Baruch - CUNY, NYU, Purdue, Harvard, Brandeis, Fordham, Boston College, Emory, BU, Syracuse, Rutgers, Northeastern -- and a lot of state universities, too.
I did once see a federal job opening that required AACSB or ACBSP accreditation. Out of curiosity, I once did a search on Indeed for jobs that mention AACSB, ACBSP, or IACBE. AACSB greatly outnumbered the other two. Of course, most of these jobs were in academia, but some were at Fortune 500 companies. If you're wanting to teach business at the post-secondary level, then you definitely want AACSB accreditation for the most opportunities. An ACBSP-accredited school will hire someone with an AACSB-accredited graduated degree, but not the other way around unless maybe for some temporary position.
This is all excellent information. I would like to add that if you (general "you") ever plan on pursuing a Masters degree in a business field (MBA, MSA, MAcc, etc), the AACSB status of your undergraduate university can and will come into play. AACSB and ACBSP are really not comparable. Looking through the list of ACBSP schools, there are an awful lot of for-profits with poor reputations: DeVry, Kaplan, Keller School of Mgmt, Strayer, Webster, UoP, Walden, a ton of community colleges, and quite a few unranked / low-ranked colleges. Look at the list of institutions accredited by the AACSB: Babson, Columbia, Bentley, Baruch - CUNY, NYU, Purdue, Harvard, Brandeis, Fordham, Boston College, Emory, BU, Syracuse, Rutgers, Northeastern -- and a lot of state universities, too.
Everyone talks about how "shady" some of these for profit schools are, but they still have the same accredditation as some non-profit schools. If you look at the institutions, many small non-profits have the ACBSP accreditation. Are they shady too? Two schools with the same accreditation should have a similar curriculum in that program, at least one would think. Embry Riddle is accredited by them, and they are a very well respected private institution, for example. Florida A&M, a state school, is accredited by them.
While there are honestly bad schools out there, the stigma on many of these schools is just bad perception. In many cases, such as the school I went to, the lower tier schools are in fact more difficult, challenging, and flat out better because they are trying to improve their reputation. I got accepted to Georgia Tech and got some scholarship money. I went to UAH instead. Why? Because Huntsville is home to the second largest research park, and they hire 80 percent of their students right from UAH. Georgia Tech can't make that claim. While UAH in the engineering circles is know to be a quality school, it still doesn't, by the average lay person have the ring of Georgia Tech. Ludicrous if one asks me.
I also think that goes with Harvard, Yale, and all the higher end schools. When it comes to the average 4 year degree, do any of these schools prepare their students anymore than the mid-tier state schools for careers? Outside of reputation and connections? I really highly doubt it. When it comes to more research, doctorate level work, they might have an edge, purely on the amount of money they spend on research.
When I started trying to figure out what school to go to, I looked at the curriculums. UF CPE program was a joke at the time. FSU didn't have one. Auburn and Clemson's curriculum was extremly more research oriented. Georgia Tech's and UAHs were the only curriculums at the time that would actually prepare a 4 year student do do real engineering out of 4 year school.
I recommend any prospective student to look at the degreed program curriculum. Talk to people who are in that field with degrees doing real work outside of research and have a look at those curriculums too. They can tell a student what they really need to do the job they have.
I completed a year's worth of credits at UoP's sister school. At the time, both schools had the same format for their courses. This is how I would describe the program at that time: struggled with having discussions with nearly illiterate students, had to do everything myself for group projects, the textbooks were horrible, there was a lot of busy work, and you could write about almost anything and earn an "A" as long as your paper met length requirements and properly used APA formatting. I can't remember learning anything. Even the community colleges I attended were better.
Everyone talks about how "shady" some of these for profit schools are, but they still have the same accredditation as some non-profit schools. If you look at the institutions, many small non-profits have the ACBSP accreditation. Are they shady too?
No but there's a fair reason for it. Non profits have 990 forms that anyone can see. For profits cling to not releasing records and go back and forth with state governments.
Right now the bubble is popping for for profit education. Basically what happened is this
1) The president removed middlemen from the student loan market. If you want a federal student loan you pretty much are dealing directly with the feds
2) Because of #1 the feds are now cracking down on for profit schools where costs are way out of line. An associates degree should not cost $40,000. Graduation rates must be public, job placement claims must be backed up etc.
If you deal with the government for funds you must comply with all of their rules. So with this being the case they tripped on their own feet. Can't attack who is technically funding you.
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