State University of New York at Fredonia is fully accredited by the Board of Regents of the State University of New York and by The Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Additionally, the Business Administration and Accounting programs of the University are candidates for accredition by the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE), and by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), toward eventual full accreditation by 2011.
In today's highly complex and diverse business environment, management education must prepare students to contribute to their organizations and larger society and to grow personally and professionally throughout their careers. The objective of management education accreditation is to assist collegiate programs to meet these challenges. Accreditation focuses on the quality of education. Standards set demanding but realistic thresholds, challenge educators to pursue continue improvement, and guide improvement in educational programs. Accreditation per se does not create quality learning experiences. Academic quality is created by the educational standards implemented by individual faculty members in interactions with students. A high quality degree program is created when students interact with a cadre of faculty in a systematic program supported by an institution. Accreditation observes, recognizes, and motivates educational quality created within the institution.
While both IACBE and AACSB advocate the highest standards in business management education, their approaches in measuring the degree that an institution of higher learning is adhering to those standards is somewhat different. IACBE employs an output driven method of evaluation, i.e. the success is measured by how well-educated the graduated students are. AACSB, on the other hand, uses an input driven approach - how adequate an institution's resources are in order to produce high quality business graduates.