I believe that every employer has the right to decide the basic qualification suitable for the position they want to fill and that there is no law requiring that every institution in the United States must be ABA approved, it appears that conventionally, the American Bar Association, whose members where originally the major employers of Paralegals wield a lot of influence in the training of Paralegals.
For instance, it is on record that the main Paralegal studies curriculum being used by accredited Paralegal institutions and colleges, whether online or off line was designed by the American Bar Association, so indirectly all the schools and institutions using this curriculum are deemed to ABA approved.
It is also common knowledge that if you seek for employment from a law firm, it is very likely that they will be biased to taking the applicant who graduated from an Aba approved or Aba curriculum institution. Following from this convention most other employers, especially Government agencies and upper rung corporate bodies are aware of the influence of Aba on Paralegal education and so will favor candidates from ABA approved schools.
Having said all that, I like to point out that Aba approved curriculum was basically designed for smaller institutions to guide them in teaching law courses for which they had no specialty. An institution with a faculty of law and a Paralegal department should not be expected to have Aba approval to teach law, after all it teaches and graduates lawyers. So my final take is that Aba approval is mainly for community colleges and online institutions akin to correspondence colleges to ensure proper legal education of Paralegal students.
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