Abet Engineering Criteria 2000: How We Got There And Why

Accreditation of educational programs in the United States is a voluntary, non-governmental, peer review process, which reflects a professional judgment that certain standards of educational quality are met. It signifies to prospective students and the public that graduates have achieved an expected level of competence in their fields of study and, thus, acts as a form of consumer protection. Two forms of accreditation exist: institutional accreditation, which seeks to assess the overall operation of a college or university from a broad perspective, and specialized accreditation, which focuses in detail on specific programs that educate students for professions (law, medicine, engineering, etc.).