Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You learn at the same university that gives you the degree. In the United States, this certification happens at the institutional level. Universities are either accredited by either a regional body (good) or a national body (not so good). The accreditation process requires demonstrating that you have competent faculty, that these faculty have designed a reasonable curriculum from each of your degree programs, that…
> In the United States, this certification happens at the institutional level. Universities are either accredited by either a regional body (good) or a national body (not so good). The accreditation process requires demonstrating that you have competent faculty, that these faculty have designed a reasonable curriculum from each of your degree programs, that the courses taught as part of that curriculum cover appropri…
> The university could lose the accreditation and teach the same stuff and nothing would really change for students - in a vacuum student outcomes would be exactly the same except that as you mention...
This is definitely not true of regional accreditation -- a degree from an unaccredited institution isn't worth the paper it's printed on in many fields. Also, as you point out, it's a low bar. If a university is accredited it may or may not do a good job at education/assessment. But a university that loses regional accreditation is almost certainly doing a horrible job at both.
ABET is a bit different -- lots of quality programs aren't ABET accredited. But still, in traditional Engineering fields, losing ABET accreditation can also have a material effect on students' outcomes (can you even sit for the PE exam without an ABET accredited degree?)
> these accreditation agencies are box-checkers and they don't do too much other than publish some guidelines and look at course material.
Yes, there's no silver bullet and the map is never the territory. The only alternative I'm aware of is standardized exams, which, well, look at US K12 or the CS GRE.
>> there's also a reputation effect among employers.
> This has not much to do with accreditation.
Right, they are two separate things but both effect institutional behavior.
> But my main point was that education itself is decoupled from certification. The employers (as you mentioned) care about certification, but that is the degree from the prestigious university, not whether ABET says that the curriculum meets some standard. You can learn computer science or any other topic to a high degree of proficiency, but employers still care about the certification. So you might as well just get the certification if you care about education as a means to a job.
This we agree on.