ABET vs. Regional Accreditation vs. National Accreditation

I am just curious to hear everyone’s opinion on this. Would you rather hire someone with a nationally accredited ABET engineering degree or someone with a regionally accredited non-ABET engineering degree?

For US schools, it’s regional accreditation that counts, rather than national accreditation.

I would think that any ABET accredited engineering degree would be from a school that’s also regionally accredited, so the choice would boil down to choosing someone with an ABET accredited engineering degree vs. someone with an engineering degree that isn’t ABET accredited. Many companies won’t hire engineers who don’t have ABET accredited engineering degrees.

I will say that for Computer Science, ABET accreditation doesn’t mean much.

I actually know of a school that is nationally accredited that offers an ABET degree.

Which one?

If you want to work in government or infrastructure then ABET is important other then that many top universities are moving away from ABET accreditation.

(e.g. The undergraduate program in Chemical Engineering at Caltech is widely regarded as one of the most rigorous in the world. In our efforts to maintain that rigor in light of the rapid pace of change in this discipline, Caltech’s Chemical Engineering faculty have concluded that the process of engineering accreditation by ABET limits our ability to offer the best possible education to Caltech’s remarkable cadre of students. Consequently, we will not pursue continued ABET accreditation.)

Three (Stanford, Caltech and possibly MIT) hardly constitutes “many.” There are over 550 institutions with at least one accredited program.

There’s a huge difference between schools like Caltech and Stanford, that have long track records and have decided, for various reasons, to forgo ABET accreditation for some of their programs, and little, under recognized, programs that are starting programs.

ABET benefits debate aside (the above schools wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t some merit), and this is not the right venue for that debate, there’s much more risk in choosing an unknown versus a powerhouse without accreditation.

Possibly a reference to the National Test Pilot School in Mojave, California. NTPS is a small, highly specialized school that has no regional (or national) accreditation; they operate legally as an unaccredited school under a license from the State of California. They are completely legit despite the lack of institutional accreditation, and offer an MS in Flight Test Engineering that has programmatic accreditation from ABET in engineering.

Since NTPS has no recognized institutional accreditation, students there are ineligible for federal financial aid. This is apparently not a problem for them, even though the program is probably very expensive, because their students are typically sponsored by the US or international military branches, other government agencies, or aerospace firms.

Obviously not a “typical” engineering school.

If you do a cursory Internet search, you will find that there are vast numbers of institutions offering non-ABET engineering degrees. Unfortunately, virtually all of them are shady degree mills – not schools like Stanford or Caltech.

True! I thing the previous poster though was referring to respectable schools, that were or are still accredited, but are now not affiliated or at least considering disaffiliating.

@simba9 Grantham University

They only offer an ABET accredited tech degree, not an engineering degree.

DigiPen Institute of Technology is nationally accredited (by ACCSC), but not regionally accredited. Yet they have a BS Computer Engineering program that holds programmatic accreditation from ABET-EAC (i.e. engineering accreditation – not computer science or engineering technology accreditation).

And as noted previously, NTPS has no recognized institutional accreditation at all (either national or regional). Yet they have an MS program that holds programmatic accreditation from ABET-EAC.

So ABET-EAC will accredit US engineering programs that have national institutional accreditation, or even state-licensed schools that are institutionally unaccredited. However, this is quite rare in practice. The vast majority of ABET-EAC programs (probably over 99%) are at regionally accredited schools.

The only example of a nationally accredited ABET engineering degree that I know of is the DigiPen BS in Computer Engineering. As noted above, Grantham doesn’t count; they are accredited by ABET-TAC (as a technology program), not ABET-EAC (as an engineering program).

You seem to be asking about the following hypothetical scenario. Suppose there were two candidates for a position in Computer Engineering. One graduated from Stanford (regional accreditation, but without ABET accreditation in this engineering discipline). The other graduated from DigiPen institute of Technology (national accreditation, but with ABET). Which is the more competitive candidate?

Do you really have to ask?

I don’t think the intent of the question was to compare Stanford to Grantham University (an online only school).

I don’t think the accreditation matters, in this case, as much as the schools and choice of majors. Especially for an engineering tech degree.

In the case of Grantham, not being regionally accredited isn’t a problem. With the “other” school not being ABET accredited, it comes down to the major/school, if it has much of an impact. For example, in Computer Sciences related major, it would not matter.

The only engineering schools you should consider are those that are ABET accredited. It is the only legitimate, rigorous, and recognized accrediting agency for engineering and computer science. ABET is absolutely essential. There are no regional accrediting agencies specifically for engineering. While the regional accreditation of the school in general (i.e., Middle States/Western States/et al Association of Schools and Colleges) is important as the standard of institutional (non-specialty) accreditation, ABET accreditation for the specific engineering program is essential in addition to the regional institutional accreditation.

I disagree with Caltech’s stance that ABET accreditation is not necessary. It strikes me as laughable hubris that they can claim “our program is widely regarded as one of the finest in the world and ABET limits our ability to … blah … blah”. Yeah, ok. Meanwhile Caltech’s peers continue to maintain ABET accreditation and their programs too are highly regarded. I don’t think Harvard or Yale Medical School for example are claiming “Our program is widely regarded as …” and using that to “justify” dropping the Association of American Medical Colleges and AMA accreditation, Stanford Law School claiming the same and dropping ABA accreditation, NYU or Wharton Business School flouting such hubris and dropping the AACSB accreditation, et al.

Graduates of Caltech’s non-ABET accredited programs will be shut out of federal and state engineering opportunities, sitting for states’ PE exams, and some private employers who require the candidates to hold an accredited degree, Caltech or no.

For the student’s perspective, ABET accreditation serves two goals.

First, it verifies that the technical education offered by the school will meet a high standard. That’s why we’re always “cautions” about programs that are not ABET. However, clearly this isn’t a concern at Caltech, MIT, or even schools like Purdue, Ohio State, etc.

The second reason, is that ABET accreditation is often a qualification for licensure and certification in your profession. That’s why even elite engineering schools will always have an ABET accredited Civil engineering program. On the other hand, it matters not at all for Computer Science. So major (professional goals) plays a role in determining the importance of ABET accreditation.

If those schools think they are better than ABET, again, disagree. By the way, some engineers in other disciplines besides CE obtain their PE license as a professional distinction, even if it is not required for the work they do. I was an EE and Comp. Sci. major and went for the PE for example. It was not required in any work I ever did, but it is a mark of professionalism. It also helped in my later consulting practice in getting clients (even though again, none of that work required the license), and in expert witness work. Maybe engineering as a profession would do well as the medical and law people did by requiring the accreditation and licensing. I don’t care the name of the school, the ABET accreditation serves as an independent, unbiased, third party that assures a high standard of quality. I dispute the notion that “it isn’t a concern” at Caltech or anyone else saying “We’re Caltech/MIT/Stanford/blah blah, and we’re the best. We know we’re the best (Like braggadocio Trump - we’re goodly good)!”. Suppose Harvard Medical School decided to drop their AAMC accreditation claiming “it isn’t a concern because we’re Harvard” (actually, they can’t since no state would recognize the graduates of an unaccredited medical school for licensure).

I’ll put the accreditation in practical terms.

If your resume comes across my desk, your education will need to fall into one of three categories.
(1) I know the school well through professional involvement with its graduates, these are typically smaller schools
(2) it has a strong national reputation, these are generally the big state schools
(3) it has an ABET cert that I can look up.

I’m not going to dismiss non ABET schools with broad brush strokes. But if you choose a non ABET school, make sure you have the ability to honestly evaluate the education you will receive.

@DecideSomeHow - agree with you, but there are many great engineering schools that aren’t big state schools. When I resume comes across my desk I don’t discount schools I don’t personally have familiarity with or have previously dealt personally with their graduates. Most engineering schools in the US are ABET accredited for at least some of their programs (at least, most traditional, non profit ones, not for-profit diploma mills).

Thanks for everyone’s input I have been curious about this for a while. For a side topic, do you think ET grads can become engineers? I have a cousin that is a systems engineer and graduated with an ET degree from Purdue and I also have an ET degree I am a automation engineer. I also think if you are going to pursue a ET degree it should be ABET accredited also.