Accreditation (or a degree from an accredited program) serves as a marker of approval from the planning profession. Practitioners and employers view accredited programs highly in providing the core for professional education with commonly recognized standards for skills, knowledge, and values. Accreditation provides an assurance that a program’s graduates are well prepared for practice with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively serve in the workplace and with the public.
Accreditation provides planners a forum in which educators and practitioners can exchange ideas on future needs of the planning profession and ways in which to best address these needs in professional education and training.
Accreditation provides the public with programmatic or institutional accountability via information about educational effectiveness.