I went to a school, on campus, which was run by Microsoft and accredited by the company, the US Department of Education, and by CompTIA, an industry standards agency which includes many member companies like IBM and Cisco. I also went to a university which was merely regionally accredited.
Looking from a viewpoint of knowing nothing, the first school sounds better, but the ONLY accreditation that counts is one of the six regional ones. In California, it's WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges). In New York, for instance, it's the Middle States Association, and then there are four others for different areas of the country like the southern US and the north.
Beware of schools, like one in my town, which is accredited by the US Department of Education, the AACSB for their MBA, the Department of Defense, but not WASC. While the Department of Education is a great agency and the AACSB has some regionally accredited schools on their roll (as well as US Dept. Education), it's the WASC which a smart HR person looks for.
While it's counter-intuitive for an employer to ignore an AACSB, the Feds, or a well thought of giant high tech monopoly like CompTIA, education in the United States considers anything
outside of the six regionally accredited agencies as "baby" agencies or merely add ons to a regional accreditation, and though real, have little or no weight.
I worked for the State Bar of California and while that's key to be a lawyer in this state, what was troublesome was due to some financial pitfalls the agency has endured (he, he, I am not going to mention anything political as I grit my teeth), there has been some consideration of allowing law schools who are not regionally accredited to become State Bar members. So in the end you can get a law degree, pass the bar and become a lawyer and even judge in California, and yet not have a law degree that is regionally accredited.
The junior college I went to will only hire instructors who are
usually with a master's degree or higher from a regionally accredited school, and will not hire a lawyer/judge if they went to a non-WASC school as that goes against the rules of the community college system in California as they too are WASC controlled.
And for the controversial University of Phoenix, you can say what you want, but they are regionally accredited despite the complaints that they are a giant and for profit and have their name on a stadium and slick commercials. They remind me of a disturbing entity called Microsoft.
Personally, I would rather go to my non WASC business school near me who is small and AACSB accredited, but HR people want the WASC so they will hire a University of Phoenix person over one who is AACSB/United States DoD and Department of Education. Go figure, but when looking online, right next to finding a good fit, make sure it's regionally accredited.
If the school proudly mentions
US Department of Education, AACSB, or some "online" accreditaton agency, but not a regional accreditation agency, then run for the hills and find that school that is accredited by the agency of their region.
That being said,
if it's regionally accredited by one of the six agencies, then it doesn't matter how many other agencies also accredit it including uncle Bob's hot chick campus of the year or if it ranked #1 in Playboy's party school of the year (which that school very proudly put on their front page). Hey, dude, I am sure it got many students.
