ABET Accreditation in Community Colleges

I received an interesting email that I wanted to share with you. It is about ABET accreditation in community colleges. Something I have heard many times and even had some experience with. Anyway, here is the note:

Mr. Frenzel
Have you ever thought of commenting on the effects of the new ABET TAC criteria on whether two[-year] schools decide to continue with the accreditation? The reason why I ask this is my school is up for reaccredidation and there are some in the Engineering Technology department who question the expense of being accredited verse its benefits. The feeling is that the cost outweighs the benefits and not being accredited would give us the flexibility in creating a program that would attract more students.My feeling is that ABET does not understand that most of the students from a two year program get jobs and do not continue on to a four year school. The TAC accreditation for two year programs seems to be aimed at preparing students for a four year degree not employment.
Thanks for the Blog. Keep up the good work.
Philip Regalbuto

Here was my response:

Good to hear from you. You asked a great question and one that I have not commented on in the blog. But I can give you a brief background on my own experiences and opinion for that that is worth.

First, let me say that the ABET has good intentions and does a good job at at what they do. In my opinion, they just do a good job at the wrong thing, at least for AAS technician degree programs. But they are really dead on target for the BSET programs. And I agree with your comment that they do not seem to recognize the fact that AAS grads usually go on to jobs and not a 4-year BSET. I have never seen any hard data on what percentage of AAS grads go on to a BSET but from what I have heard it is very low, only a few percent. However, if the community college is very near a university offering a BSET the percentage is much higher. That is not the usual case. Here at Austin CC in Texas, we are near Texas A&M and Texas State U but our transfer rate is less than 1%. Most grads want jobs asap. I suspect that some AAS grads do eventually go back but it is rare. For that reason, what good is ABET?

My own experience with ABET has been awful. A few years back at a CC in Florida, the president asked why our dept wasn't ABET accredited. The dept head at the time asked us why not. We all agreed to pursue it, dumb as we were at the time. Putting together the applilcation, we all began to realize that what we were doing may not actually be as good for us as we thought. When we had our formal review a committe visit, we all knew we should have declined. The reviewers keep thinking that all techs needed to be more like engineers. They asked us to add calculus to the AAS degree. They asked that we add more design and simulation to each course.

The dept head agreed to make the changes and we did. The overall result is that we had to drop some courses from the program, courses that some of the local companies depended on. The industry advisory committee was furious. The addition of calculus forced some (most as I recall) students to fuss and gripe and many to drop out. And there were other problems. The bottom line is that we lost students and industry support. And the cost of maintaining the accreditation was very high, something no one expected. At least the president and dept head could boast of being ABET accredited. This accreditation seems to be more of an academic ego thing. Besides I have never heard of any company demand or for that matter even know about ABET accreditation. I suspect there are exceptions to that, but for the most part industry is happy with your regular regional accrediation and either doesn't know about ABET or care.

While I was dept head at Austin CC where I am now an adjunct, I went through the same procedure. My dean said to look into ABET. I related my past experience but decided to do more. I conducted a survey on the ETD listserv and asked about AAS degree accreditation With ABET. I have the results of this some where but I can sum it up rather easily. 48% of those who responded were ABET accredited. Most did it to ensure positive articulation with BSET schools although most admitted few grads actually transferred. Those who were ABET accredited universally griped about the cost to maintain accreditation. Most also said they would not do it again knowing what they know now. The non-ABET group was happy with their decision as it gave them far more flexibility to create programs and courses that fit the job opps and meet local industry needs. Jobs is what it is all about these days. We did NOT pursue ABET accreditation at ACC. And you know what? The BSET schools still accept most couses for credit transfer anyway.

I know ABET has revised its policies but from those I have talked with I can discern the same smug academic positioning that says AAS programs should be more robust and more engineering-like. Techs are not engineers. Even the engineering tech has essentially gone away. What ABET needs is a group that knows what today's techs actually do and establish an accreditation for that rather than some mythical engineering-like person.

Sorry for the long rant. Maybe I should post this for the blog. Thanks for asking. I know you need to gather your own data and make the decision best for your school. My advise would be to drop ABET and go your own way based on jobs and local industry needs. You will never go wrong with that. And maybe it will send a signal to ABET that change is needed.

Very best wishes,
Lou Frenzel