Newbie who is a little confused

Hi all! I stumbled across the site while researching schools for my husband and myself. Currently we are in the process of finishing all of our last minute priorities to begin class at the beginning of March.

I thought I had picked a great school, and now I am unsure with regards to their accreditations. I chose to go with Florida Institute of Technology after reading many good things about them, especially in certain news articles.

My husband was originally enrolled in UOP, but had quickly changed his mind. I have previous college experience at a B&M school. Unfortantely, I am unable to finish what I would love to go to school for online (Nursing). I did not complete my AA (Young and dumb).Now 8 years later, long story short- Stay at home mom of 2 little ones, new place with no family around (makes it harder to put them in daycare)....etc.

I am enrolled in the BA Business Administration/Healthcare Management program and he will be going for his AS Computer Imformation Systems degree. How important is it that a school be accredited through AASCB when going for a business degree. I looked at ABET and found them on the list for what my husband will be going for. This has me a little confused. I would just like to be sure, that at the end of our journey, my degree will be recognized considering the out of pocket expenses I will endure. (I have learned of much cheaper schools thanks to this site!)

Any advice and/or personal experience with this school would be greatly appreciated!!

 

You may have some confusion between academic accreditation and programmatic accreditation. A school with no legitimate academic accreditation (i.e., regional, DETC, or one of the other CHEA-recognized accreditors), or equivalency (if outside the US) will give you a degree with very, very limited utility.

However, FIT is regionally accredited, so the degree you'll earn from them is a perfectly good and legitimate degree. Regional accreditation is the "gold standard" that all of the Ivys (and nearly other bricks-and-mortar schools in the US) have.

Programmatic accreditation is different; it is a recognition by a professional accreditor (as opposed to an academic one) that a specific program (business, psychology, engineering, etc) has been approved by that programmatic accreditor, in this case, AACSB.

As far as business degrees, my understanding is that, while AACSB does accredit undergraduate degree programs, the only place where AACSB accreditation really matters is at the masters or doctoral level. Some employers may insist on an AACSB-accredited MBA, but I've never heard of anyone being denied employment because an undergrad degree did not have programmatic accreditation.

Perhaps others here who are more familiar with business degrees can confirm this (or correct me), but I am pretty confident that's the case.

 

Ah, Thank you so much for your quick response! You have helped clear up alot for me I feel alot better now and will definately look more into it if I decide to pursue a graduate degree.

Thanks again!

 

As far as the programmatic accreditation only matter in the Academia. For example, you might need an MBA from AACSB to teach at certain colleges/universities. And for ABET, I firmly believe only matter in Engneering track such as Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and etc. Most of the ABET schools require non-ABET undergraduate degree to takes GRE for graduate program admission.

As just likes Chip said...it not matter much unless you're into certain fields and state license. For example, ABA for Law, APA for Psychology, ABET for Engineering, and etc.

 

Let's not push away programmatic accreditation too quickly. Employers may not know about it explicitly, but it correlates well to school ranking. For example, almost all of the top B-schools are accredited by AACSB. And I know ABET accreditation can matter. Those are the two fields with which I'm familiar; I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other examples, not to mention the whole licensure business.

 

That’s quite true Rich; however, there are many lower tier university business schools that also hold AACSB accreditation – several here in Texas.