Universidad de las Americas/Costa Rica

Hi there,

The Universidad de las Americas, founded in Costa Rica is one university that, until recently, I considered to be a legit University, with a interesting program in administration oriented towards production
administration and another in logistics.

Today, to my great dismay, I have found that they claim accreditation before WAUC. Now the question is, what do the regulars think about this institution? I remember that I verified, sometime in the past, perhaps
two years ago, that this institution was indeed registered with the Comision Nacional de Estudios Superiores at Costa Rica. Now this claims of accreditation before WAUC make me wonder... Perhaps this institution still is GAAP, due to the earlier registration with CONESUP?

So, anyone there with an opinion about this? If Mr. Caballero is reading, I would be particularly interested in hearing his opinion.

Best regards,
Aaron

 

I don't know anything about the school itself, but WAUC pretty much guarantees "less than wonderful" status.

 

This raises an interesting point: from our perspective, it guarantees said status, but does it confer it? It would take a very naive and inept administration admittedly, but might the accreditation not have been sought in the sincere belief that it was legitimate? Does anyone know if something similar has happened before?

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Bill Gossett

 

Interesting question. I would certainly hope that the administration of a school, particuarly a DL school, would be aware of the issues & ramifications of accreditation.

I think it's possible that some small Bible schools might have been bamboozled by ACI, IAC, etc., but at the university level you have to think they either know exactly what the score is, and if they don't, they shouldn't be in administration.

 

WAUC has made considerable inroads in accrediting universities in other countries: a dozen or so in Japan, others in India, Malaysia, and now Costa Rica. And they have accredited the totally phony Cambridge state (run from a mail drop in Hawaii), Acton (apparently run from his prison cell by the founder of LaSalle), and suchlike.

My strong sense of this is that some, perhaps many, of the non-US schools are entirely legitimate, and badly misguided. But WAUC can look good on paper, in terms of their own presentation. Maxine Asher does have a regionally-accredited doctorate (Walden). And for quite a while, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico (in the Carter administration) was on her board.

Incidentally, but relevantly, in Bears; Guide 14, we report on, and quote from, a lawsuit filed by Taft University versus WAUC. Among the revelations. Taft's president said, "WAUC was not able to provide any documentation that they had ever conducted a site visit at any member institution."

 

Dear Mr. Rivacoba:

I hope you are well, and thank you very much for asking for my opinion.

The "Universidad de las Américas (UIA)" is, indeed, a legitimate residential university operating in metropolitan San José, Costa Rica. As you correctly pointed out, this institution is a member of "Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada (CONESUP)" which, in turn, is recognized by the "Ministerio de Educación". CONESUP oversees the recognition process of institutions of higher education in the private sector. On the other hand, "Consejo Superior de Educación", also recognized by the "Ministerio de Educación", oversees the recognititon process of government-owned institutions like "Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR)".

Yes, "Universidad Internacional de las Américas (UIA)" is a member of WAUC. By the same token, "Universidad Central (UC)", another private residential university in Costa Rica, is also a member of WAUC.

Regarding WAUC accreditation, I don't buy the notion that UIA was naive enough to look for this type of accreditation believing that it was of some legitimate value. While it is true that the regular Costa Rican citizen doesn't know about accreditation issues in the United States, UIA has many faculty members who graduated in the United States and who, by virtue of this and by virtue of being educators, are supposed to know about these accreditation issues.

As you are probably aware, it is a marketing selling point for many institutions in Latin American to try to portray a degree as transferable to United States institutions. This was my take with UIA and WAUC. They are trying to attract students by pointing out that its degrees are more transferable as a result of WAUC accreditation. In point of actuality, this was corroborated when I read WAUC's Costa Rican site:
http://www.wauc.net/Pages/portada.htm

For those of you who know Spanish, you can see that it is stated there that WAUC accreditation helps the path to trasferability to United States institutions. What they failed to mention is that the recognititon of CONESUP by the Costa Rican government is what carries the weight for transferability purposes, not just to the United States but to anywhere else in the world.

Mr. Rivocaba, I thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Respectfully yours,


Karlos Alberto "Mr. Caballero" Lacaye
[email protected]

P.S.: If anybody of you cares (?), March 15 or today is my birthday.

 

Happy birthday, Br. Caballero -- and welcome aboard! Good to have you back!


Peace,

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Tom Head
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

I ran this website through Babelfish at:
http://world.altavista.com/

It seemed to translate into English pretty well. Just feed the url you want to translate and viola! (Well, not always. Sometimes you don't get a lot.)

Rich Douglas

 

Hi, Br. Head!

Thank you for your birthday wishes and your warm welcome.

Unluckily, my birthday "died" while I was posting another message ): I hope to have another birthday in 12 months, though.

My best regards,


Br. Caballero Lacaye
[email protected]