[yvonne]

Accreditation has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of an institution. Heald College is accredited through the same body (WASC) as Stanford is. An accreditation board simply asks schools what their goals are and to keep a record of what they've done to achieve those goals. So, let's say both Heald and Stanford offer course goals  the same goal of teaching critical thinking. The Stanford class will keep copies of papers with rhetorical devices, analysis of opposing views, outside citations, personally conducted studies, and so on. The Heald class might include a quiz on logical fallacies. Both can claim they taught the same thing, even though they reach different levels in Bloom's taxonomy.

So, it's not possible to get an education at any accredited university. Moreover, much of what a university is has nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom. So, at a major state university or a major private research institution, I'm going to hear from ex- presidents, opera singers, civil rights leaders, poet laureates, and the like, but I'm not likely to receive that exposure at smaller, less prestigious schools. 

[yvonne]

Accreditation has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of an institution. Heald College is accredited through the same body (WASC) as Stanford is. An accreditation board simply asks schools what their goals are and to keep a record of what they've done to achieve those goals. So, let's say both Heald and Stanford offer course goals  the same goal of teaching critical thinking. The Stanford class will keep copies of papers with rhetorical devices, analysis of opposing views, outside citations, personally conducted studies, and so on. The Heald class might include a quiz on logical fallacies. Both can claim they taught the same thing, even though they reach different levels in Bloom's taxonomy.

So, it's not possible to get an education at any accredited university. Moreover, much of what a university is has nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom. So, at a major state university or a major private research institution, I'm going to hear from ex- presidents, opera singers, civil rights leaders, poet laureates, and the like, but I'm not likely to receive that exposure at smaller, less prestigious schools.