I don't disagree that "Having that piece of documentation from an accredited school means something" If one can go to a top or mid-tier school then one should

I don't disagree that "Having that piece of documentation from an accredited school means something" If one can go to a top or mid-tier school then one should go. But that is not a reality for some people. There are also a lot of people who went to a university but after a few years wished they had studied something else. We wanted to give people a dead simple way to replicate a degree/minor path if going to a "real university" was not available or to inconvenient.