Germany, Europe and American Accreditation

Hello,

There is a very interesting discussion developing under the thread of "BA in 4 Weeks" about the recognition of US degrees in Europe. Living in Germany and taking an interest in an US degree by distance, I too, have been doing a bit of research. Though, there are still questions I'd like to have get answered, I think I can also contribute to this discussion. Because the "BA in 4 weeks" thread grew a bit to large, I thought it'd be a good idea to create a new one.
There is a nice website created by the FH Hannover, a German technical college, for German students wishing to study in the USA. http://www.fh-hannover.de/usa/studium.htm
They have a student advisory service which can be reached by e-mail(see below). And it has some very usefull information regarding recognition of American degrees in Germany and even a section of links to distance education resources with the Degree.net of John Bear included: http://www.fhhannover.de/usa/studusa1.htm#Fernstudium

But here I want to summarize and maybe quote a few sentences from the chapter on accreditation of US degrees in Germany:

"(US)Accreditation is the seal of quality for Universities and courses of studies in the USA and is most likely an equivalent to our, so far customary, recognition by the state". Futher, there is some information on the process of the accreditation. And it is pointed out that there are two different kinds of accreditation in the US: regional and professional(maybe someone could elaborate about the professional accreditation).
Futher it reads:"The (US)accreditation is a basic prerequisite for the recognition of American degrees in Germany."

They've also a student advisory service which can be contacted by e-mail: http://www.fh-hannover.de/usa/index.htm
And they say, they will be glad to answer questions.So I thought, maybe you, Lawrie, would take an interest to contact them, as you do a survey anyways. I think, it'll be no problem at all comunicating in English with them.

Dennis Siemens

 

Dennis,

Although my German is very rusty I found the site interesting with a lot of links to U.S. accrediting information. One page kept returning and error but for the most part the links provided were informative.

On regional and professional accreditation it is important to point out that the standard college/university accreditation is regional accreditation (RA). RA focuses more on the college and university as a whole. It looks into programs, resources, faculty, etc. Professional accreditation is specialized and typically focuses on a particular program. The acceptance and need of professional accreditation also varies. For instance, most U.S. law schools have a professional accreditation by the American Bar Association (ABA). Most states require ABA accredited degrees from practicing lawyers. Hence a very important accreditation if you want to be a lawyer. On the other hand the AACSB accreditation amongst business schools raises the standard for business programs that seek this accreditation but many business programs do not have this accreditation (although they are still RA).

John

 

Excellent, Dennis. Thank you for creating the thread and for getting the ball rolling with such useful information and citations. If we can get more contributions of equal substance and clarity to yours, it may be possible to fashion a picture of U.S. degree recognition abroad, based on empirical evidence rather than opinion.

Thanks again,

Lawrie

 

Hello,

Here is the correct link to the distance education links of the FH Hannover I've mentioned in my original post:
www.fh-hannover.de/usa/studusa1.htm#Fernstudium

Dennis Siemens

 

Hello,

I've just re-read the reply from Peter Glaeser(posted by Lawrie Miller) under the "BA in 4 weeks" thread and I think it provides very valuable information about recognition of distance US degrees in Germany. However, I'd like to add that there is obvious a distinction between holding a foreign degree in its original form and have a foreign degree recognized as an equivalent to a traditional German degree(e.g. see the newsgroup FAQ by Christian Taube, question 16, in German: http://www.landfield.com/faqs/de-studium/usa_faq/)To simply aquire the right to use an academic title in its original form you need a permission from the ministry of educational(or science) affairs of the federal state you have the place of residence. If you get the permission to use the title, you must place the name of the country where you did earn it, right after the degree's name.
The second possibility, which is more difficult, is to
file an application for recognition of the equivalency to a German degree. In this case, the contents of study of an US degree will be compaired to that of the German study program and if they match, you can aquire a German equivalency.

Another interesting question is what one could possibly do in Germany with a Bachelor's from an American school, earned by distance and on top of it by examinations(Excelsior). I don't claim to be right on all that I put down below, so correct me if I'm wrong. Anyways, here are my thoughts:

-Even though, your degree may be not recognized as an equivalent to a German title, you still could get the permission(which is easier than aquiring equivalency) to use it in the original form. Though, with German universities offering now as well Bachelor's, Master's etc. I'm not sure whether this makes much sence. In my opinion a Bachelor is a Bachelor and a Master a Master whether German or American.

-Though, as already mentioned in this discussion,
the Bachelor is yet relatively unknown in Germany this situation could change in a couple of years from now. A number of German Universities offers already (since the enforcement of the new"Hochschulrahmengesetz"
[in English, something like "legislation governing higher education"] a couple of years ago) Bachelor's and Master's degree programs. Thus, it can be expected as Germany's private sector becomes more familar with Anglo-Saxon degrees they will more readily accept them. The Bachelor, for example, is praised by some in Germany, as a fast way to start a career with an academic degree.

-If you want, after completing your Bachelor's to go further for a Master's, maybe you could get accepted by a German University that provides Bachelor and Master programs. I noted, that recently the are more and more American universities opening branches in Germany. So I think you've even a better chance with an American Bachelor to be
accepted from an American branch-university in Germany. You could also go abroad, England, Australia, USA etc. Though, this is probably not the cheapest variation judging in terms of money. And finally, there is the option to do the Master by distance as well. A Master's degree in my opinion, and Peter Glaeser seems to imply the same, finds today a wider range of acceptance in Germany than a Bachelor's.

Any comments?

 

Sorry, the link in my post doesn't work.
Here is the correct one:http://www.taube-online.de/USA/usa-faq-17.html

 

Dennis,

this is a great link, I already ordered the official material from the state authorities.
By the way, if you are interested in addresses and telephone numbers or even websites of your German state authority, check out this one:
http://www.kmk.org/aufg-org/adr/adrmin.htm

Cheers,

Michaela

 

Hi,
some additional links for recognition information of "foreign" degrees in germany:

1)
"Grundsätze für die Regelung der Führung ausländischer Hochschulgrade im
Sinne einer gesetzlichen Allgemeingenehmigung durch einheitliche
gesetzliche Bestimmungen"

Link is:
http://www.kmk.org/hschule/grundsaetze.htm

2)
Genehmigungen zur Führung ausländischer Hochschulgrade
(Beschluss der KMK vom 12.1.1999)

without link, this is a thick book listing universities and degrees from a lot of countries, that will be allowed to USE in germany. As mentioned by Dennis, USE of a degree is different from EQUIVALENCY.
In my opinion EQUIVALENCY will be very hard to get, but USING a title should be possible as long as it was rewarded by a accredited university. For the US, only PhD is covered and only at Carnegie/Mellon R1U universities,
at least in the issue on my desk.

3) Some links to stress that point
http://www.kmk.org/zab/grade08.htm
http://www.kmk.org/zab/beruf12.htm



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friedrich

 

friedrich wrote:

In my opinion EQUIVALENCY will be very hard to get, but USING a title should be possible as long as it was rewarded by a accredited university. For the US, only PhD is covered and only at Carnegie/Mellon R1U universities,
at least in the issue on my desk.


Though, I ask myself whether the discussion about equivalency makes sense whatsoever, especially in the long run . Due to the fact that Germany's educational system was in the past quite different from that in Anglo-Saxon countries and such degrees as the Bachelor or Master were completely unknown, an evalaution for equivaleny was certainly appropriate. But now, since the enforcement of the changes in the Hochschulrahmengesetz
(a legislation regulating academical education in Germany) it is possible to earn a Bachelor's, Master's etc. degree at German Fachhochschulen or Universities thus the line between Germany's and English-American educational systems is gradually blurring.
Of course, there are still many traditionalists that kick up a fuss about the new study programs. For example, they call the Bachelor a "McDonald's degree", alleging that it is without academic depth.
Others, however, are more open minded.
But, I think, the question is who will prevail. And considering the present development of globalization, the Anglo-American system has a far better chance to get acceptance in Germany than vise versa. Maybe, the only feature one could tell, you didn't earn your degree in Germany will be the name of the country of origin behind your degree.
In my opinion, in the long run even that could disappear. Though, on the other hand, the German Bachelor takes three years to complete as does the British. In America, however, to earn a Bachelor the traditional way, it takes four years. So it could be, that in the USA a British or German Bachelor will not be considered as equivalent to an American Bachelor(especially by public authorities). And, as far as I remember, we had recently a discussion here about this fact.

A good overview of the present debate in Germany is in Focus-Online(a German weekly): http://focus.de/D/DB/DBU/DBU27/dbu27.htm

Specifically regarding distance education, they mention the Open University in England which offers degrees by distance. http://focus.de/D/DB/DBX/DBX29/DBX29A/dbx29a.htm

And they say, a degree earned this way from the Open University, is accredited in Germany. Can we apply the same to accredited American(or whatever) degrees by distance?

Dennis Siemens

 

Though, on the other hand, the German Bachelor takes three years to complete as does the British. In America, however, to earn a Bachelor the traditional way, it takes four years.


But, to speak frankly, it´s good that the new German Bachelor´s are only 3-year-programs, because the first year in American Bachelor studies in most cases just includes (liberal arts) stuff that Germans already learned in their 12th or 13th grade in High School...

 

Yepper! 30 credits of my general education requirement for my Excelsior degree come from my last German high school year.

 

Hello Peter,

I've learned that you plan on going to Britain for the purpose of futher education.
How well is the level of acceptance of an Excelsior degree earned by examinations with English universities?

Thank you,

Dennis Siemens

 

Hi Peter.

Now you´re surprising me; is that true? Excelsior gave you THIRTY credits for your high school education??? How did you manage that?

I´d be glad if you could contact me via mail, if you have time: [email protected]

Thanx a lot and Greetings to everyone on this great forum,

T.

 

I don't know yet. We will see what they say when they get my applications.

 

Excelsior College does not evaluate the credit itself, not directly. I had to use ECE, a professional agency that evaluates international credentials, and they sent their evaluation transcript to Excelsior.

They accepted the classes I took in 13th grade (final year of German high school). And yes, I agree that European secondary school graduates have a higher standard of learning. For example, the highest math class I took in high school was Linear Algebra. A lot of U.S. college kids never take that class. During my year as an exchange student in the U.S. (11th grade), I took AP Calculus and got a 4 on the AP test (worth 6 college credits).

I couldn't apply all my "high school credits" to the degree program because I ended up having duplicative credit (like the Political Studies courses from high school and the GRE Political Science exam lower-level credit). And Excelsior didn't count all my English language courses because they have a limit of I believe 6 credits for Freshmen English. But that's alright.

 

Hi Peter.
Is there a web address of "ECE"?

And, are you planning to use your Excelsior degree in Germany? Have you checked if it will be accepted for nostrification?

Best Greetings from Cologne,

Trigger

 

Hi Trigger,

the ECE Web address is
http://www.ece.org/

Cheers,

Michaela

 

Be sure to read Excelsior's webpage before you deal with ECE. Excelsior tells you what type of evaluation they want.

I don't intend to use it the degree. It's supposed to serve as my admission ticket to traditional postgraduate study in England.

 

It seems to me that one way around the issue of a US degree being recognized in Germany is to obtain a US degree, use that to obtain a professional license in the US, and try to have the professional license recognized in Germany. Does anyone know how well that works?

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Gerry Ashton