RA vs. ACBSP

[chris.erhardt14]

I recently completed my BAAS in Organizational Leadership through East Texas A&M University. I am considering to go one step further and get a Master or MBA degree. I have a pretty good understanding of Regional Accreditation vs. National Accreditation as well as the two main business school specific accreditations (AACSB and ACBSP). Here are the options I've looked at thus far. Please note, they're not in any specific order of preference. 


- Hellenic American University: MBA. Regional Accreditation but no AACSB or ACBSP. Not sure of cost, website says $3,000 but it also says that promo ended years ago so not sure what it costs now. 

- University of Maine at Presque Isle: MSB. Regional Accreditation but no AACSB or ACBSP. I guess possible to finish in 2-4 terms so total cost $5,000 - $10,000? 

- SSBM Geneva: MBA. No U.S. Accreditation since it's a Swiss school, however, their MBA program is ACBSP accredited. Total cost $7,000. 

My question is, what is "better"? A degree from a U.S. RA school without ACBSP or a degree from an international school with ACBSP accreditation? Lastly, do y'all have any other options I'm overlooking? I don't really care if it's an MBA or MS or MA degree (as long as it's in business, management, entrepreneurship, leadership, etc.). It just has to be "legit". It's also not for career purposes per se, it's more of a bucket list item although it may help with my career down the road obviously.

[Twrix]

For what it’s worth, HAU has IACBE accreditation: https://iacbe.org/member/hellenic-american-university

[swlearner71]

WGU is an RA, and its MBA has ACBSP accreditation. If you get a scholarship and finish in one term, you could complete it for close to 4k, which is hard to beat. In my experience, the scholarships aren't that hard to get, or at least easier than at other universities.

For around 12k, you could instead obtain an AACSB MBA from Southeastern Oklahoma. Emporia State is in a similar price range and also carries AACSB. The iMSM from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is not technically an MBA but a management degree. It is AACSB, fully online, and comes from a respected institution. It costs about 13k.

Since you don't necessarily need the degree for career purposes, programmatic accreditation probably doesn't matter that much, so long as the school is generally accredited and passes the sniff test. It's mainly meant to signal program quality, AACSB being the gold standard. In more niche situations, such as adjunct teaching, maybe some jobs, or PhD admissions, AACSB could be seen more favorably. Although I'm not well-versed on how common that is.

[bjcheung77]

For what it’s worth, HAU has IACBE accreditation: https://iacbe.org/member/hellenic-american-university

Actually, they don't have IACBE accreditation. They have membership as per the link. There's a difference between membership and accreditation.

WGU is an RA, and its MBA has ACBSP accreditation. If you get a scholarship and finish in one term, you could complete it for close to 4k, which is hard to beat. In my experience, the scholarships aren't that hard to get, or at least easier than at other universities.

Ding ding, It's going to be a hard decision, so many choices available. But if it was me, I would say the following...Original Poster needs to decide between these two programs. HAU is just $3,500 because of their scholarship, they bumped the pricing from $3,000 earlier in the year, I guess it was a change from 2025 pricing to 2026. HAU is not CBE and doesn't have additional programmatic or secondary accreditation, it's my recommendation for non-CBE.

Yes, WGU is an RA, and its MBA has ACBSP accreditation. In addition to that, because Original Poster is a Canadian living in Texas, I highly recommend this over HAU if they're looking at a CBE option that has the ACBSP programmatic or secondary accreditation. It's the cheapest one for graduate studies and undergrad (Yes, it's cheaper than TESU). The plus here is that WGU is also state endorsed by a few states (Texas is one of them).

Good luck, here's the Affiliates Link on their WIKI... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Go...Affiliates
Affiliates are not campuses, they're just offices for their administrative staff that cater to students in the state, all the programs are from WGU online anyways.

[UoBoomer]

OP Jindal gained AACSB last year and is offering an MBA for under $3k (Coursera 2,4K, or even under $2k if you go through UpGrad). This could be a cheaper alternative.

Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/degrees/mba-bus...lytics-jgu
UpGrad: https://www.upgrad.com/de/mba-opj-global-university/

I am not enrolled yet, but I look forward to joining after completing my Udacity MS in AI.

[chris.erhardt14]

I just heard from East Texas A&M that they will soon offer a CBE Master's degree in Org. Leadership, Instructional Design and Public Safety. It's currently at the Coordinating Board awaiting approval. Maybe I just wait for that. I liked my experience with them for the BAAS.

[SpartacusPM]

I just heard from East Texas A&M that they will soon offer a CBE Master's degree in Org. Leadership, Instructional Design and Public Safety. It's currently at the Coordinating Board awaiting approval. Maybe I just wait for that. I liked my experience with them for the BAAS.

Hopefully this finally gets approved this go around. Would really help increase ETAMU's reach. They are starting to get more recognition and adding Masters degrees to the CBE options will only help with this.  This has been in the works for close to 2 years now. I was waiting for it last year as well but moved on to other options.