European International University

[SteveFoerster]

Completely agree. AACSB is still the gold standard, even after leaving CHEA.

To be honest, I don't see why CHEA matters at all anymore. Even some of the former regionals have dropped their membership. The only time I see schools mention it is when they have some sort of tenuous second-hand connection to it, usually through their meaningless "International Quality Group", trying to make that seem like something it's not.

That said, I don’t think ACBSP or IACBE are worthless either. 

If a school doesn’t have something like DEAC, having ACBSP/IACBE (and even UK oversight like BAC/ASIC) can still help round out the picture a bit.

Not every institution can jump straight to AACSB, or even DEAC. Most have to start somewhere. And I’ve noticed a lot of schools hold AACSB memberships while they’re building toward stronger recognition, which at least shows intent.

Whoa, there's a lot to unpack here!

What value do you think ACBSP and/or IACBE offer under normal circumstances, as in the overwhelming majority of cases where a school has normal institutional accreditation and then has its business programs programmatically accredited by ACBSP or IACBE?

I'm keenly aware of the hurdles that startup institutions face getting accreditation, so I'm not unsympathetic to the "Well, at least the institution has something!" style argument. But I question whether having one's business programs accredited by ACBSP is any more expensive or time-consuming than having one's institution accredited by ACCSC or DEAC, so it strikes me as odd that one would do the former rather than the latter.

As for ASIC, that's an apples-to-orangutans comparison. To be honest, I find it a little difficult to determine how much, if anything, ASIC means in 2026. One the one hand, institutional accreditation the way Americans think of it has always been outside of their official scope. On the other hand, they're going through an awful lot of effort to look like they add value—if they were (still?) an accreditation mill, they could be that with a lot less effort and expense when it comes to publications, putting on events, etc. You spoke of showing positive intent, and it's probably fair to argue that presently ASIC is at least doing that.

You make it sound like ACBSP is a stepping stone on the way to AACSB, and that's not so. The former accredits teaching in business programs; the latter accredits research in business programs. I know academia loves its pecking orders, but they're not the same.

And finally, given how often that sort of thing is abused, I'm skeptical accreditors should even have "membership" levels, even if they help accreditors pay the bills.

Nobody needs a non-AACSB school, but plenty of people still want an education, and not every school is going to be AACSB.

Outside of those wanting to maximize their options for teaching or doctoral study, the question is whether anyone truly needs a school that has AACSB. (Although Sagan correctly points out that the intersection of AACSB-accredited business schools and prestigious business schools is very large, so there's that.)