Hello, As I might not get more answers in my previous thread (Online MBA at the University of Liverpool), and as my questions are not directly connected to the University of Liverpool, I thought it might be better to present the new questions in a new and independent thread My questions are: 1. Should a University that has the RA and the AACSB not be considered because its MBA program is not mentioned on the AMBA list? (Example MBA at Colorado State University) 2. In case the answer of question one refers to the AMBA accreditation as an important factor to look after, should the DL MBA at Imperial College of London not be considered because only the on-Campus MBAs of IC (not the DL MBA) are on the AMBA list? 3. Concerning UK schools: Royal Charter and DFES: are they different? In case they are different and in case a UK university has both of them, but its MBA program is not listed on the AMBA (Example DL MBA at University of Liverpool) does it mean that the DL MBA degree for this UK university is not good enough to be academically and professionally recognized? 4. The DL MBA at Colorado State University and the DL MBA at the University of Colorado: What are the differences, and which one would be more recommended? 5. Please some comments on the DL MBA at Ellis College of New York Institute of Technology. Thanks guys for your time Regards Jozy
On "professional" accredition... AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS are not government accredition. Each school try to pursue some of these for their own sake. e.g. for US school seems to be a must, AMBA in UK, and EQUIS in contential Europe. Each of them has their own set of requirements. Some of the school are proud of getting all the 3 accreditions while some schools choose not to pursue any. This has to be different from RA or accredited by local government. In UK, most universities are government funded and supported, so to their programmes. The University of Liverpool is one in UK. EBS (of HWU) is another school not pursuing any professional accreditions. But they are all legitimate to grant degrees in UK. Another issue with the professional accreditions is that they are more inclined to on-campus learning. DL programmes without face-to-face contact is almost impossible to obtain accreditions like AMBA. Finally, I always doubt if anyone would really care if the programme is accredited by any of these, as far as the school is legitimate. The real issue is how people preceive the programme and the school. So it is down the fame of the school and the programme you are interested, but not any of their accreditions. There are simply so many accreditions, with different rules and criteria that no one will actually care. Legitimacy and fame are instead what people should look for. On your questions, based on my view (again.... subjective.... maybe prejudice): 1) No, then you may want to consider EQUIS then.. right? programmes having AACSB, AMBA, and EQUIS are only a few in the world. Also I believe most US programmes don't bother to apply for AMBA or EQUIS. 2) Again no (if you take my view, and tolerate my prejudice in relation of the subject in this question). Some time ago I heard from the programme director they are applying for EQUIS. Surely I will update the progress of this if I know more. 3) Royal Charter has a far longer history . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Charter DFES is the department for education and skills of the British government. AMBA is not any government organisations governing the quality of education. A UK university having both Royal Charter and DFES shuold be good enough to be academically recognised. As for professional recognition, what I understand from this is that: when a professional organisation asks for an MBA degree from a (legitmate) university, then the DL MBA degree for that UK university should qualify as far as the university are under Royal Charter or DFES 4) I don't know them very well. However, recommending anyone depends what you want to look for in an MBA programme, right?
Thanks tcmak for the clarification. I still want to ask the following: If a university is RA, does it mean that: 1. All the degrees offered by this university are accredited? 2. All the departments, faculties and colleges that belong to this university are accredited? About The DL MBA at Colorado State University and the DL MBA at the University of Colorado. I wanted to know which one is more prestigious and reputable. I am still seeking some opinions on the DL MBA at Ellis College NY IT. Regards Jozy
Jozy, You will be hard pressed to find AMBA or Equis accredited schools in the US. AACSB is much more likely. As TCMak pointed out Professional accreditation (PA) is different than US regional accreditation or Royal Charter in the UK. Professional accreditation only means that the school meets the said requirements of the professional accrediting body, applied and went through the accreditation process. How important is PA? Well there is the great debate. If a US school is regionally accredited that means the school it self is regionally accredited, in other words they don't just accredit a portion of the school but the entire University (or college). If you are looking for MBA options you may want to try Jonnies website http://www.geocities.com/liu_jonathan/distance.html
A. If a university is regionally accredited, this means that the degrees from all faculties of fthe school will be considered accredited degrees. B. On the question of CU or CSU, as an ex-Coloradan of eight years standing (1978-1986), I'd say it depends on which campuses we're dealing with. I'd say that the Boulder campus of CU is more prestigious than any campus of CSU. The Fort Collins campus of CSU, however, would be more prestigious than the Denver and Colorado Springs campuses of CU. I'm not sure if the Pueblo campus of CSU is offering MBA degrees yet, but if they did I'd rank them below CU Denver and UCCS.
In the United States, the "government" does not accredit. The United States Department of Education (USDE), and its Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), authorizes/approves private agencies to accredit. According to CHEA, there are three kinds of accreditation: Regional, national and specialized/professional. AACSB is a specialized/professional accreditor, approved by CHEA. Though that is not the same as direct governmental accreditation, since we don't do that in the US that's as close as one can come. The other "accreditors" you mentioned (AMBA and EQUIS) are not US accreditors at all. Whether they are on-par, in their own countries, with US accreditors is another matter. I could not disagree more with the "no one will actually care" remark; and I'm concerned about how the "legitimacy and fame are instead what people should look for" remark may sound to the newbie. I don't want anyone to be misled. Your recommendation sounds -- though I don't think you (or at least I hope you didn't) mean it this way -- almost like the clarion call of the apologists for institutions unaccredited who counsel in othe fora that even if it's unaccredited, it's still just fine. And, indeed, there are institutions/programs out in the universe that are unaccredited, yet are quite rigorous, and may, therefore, be worthwhile. But with an MBA, in the US, the dead minimum means of establishing legitimacy is the absolutely essential regional accreditation. The mere appearance of legitmacy -- and especially something as meaningless as "fame" -- are not appropriate criteria. In the US, AACSB is a professional accreditation, best (but not necessarily) served atop (in addition to) the baseline regional accreditation. Regional accreditation, for virtually any US degree, is essential. Beyond that, whether such as AACSB accreditation is truly necessary as long as the MBA in question is at least regionally accredited is debatable. Certainly if one intends to take one's MBA to the biggest and best of corporate America and apply for employment there, one should know that most of his competition's MBAs will be both regionally- and AACSB-accredited. So if someone really wants to compete on that level, then one probably does need one's MBA to have both accreditations. But there are literally hundreds of fine US MBA programs out there which are not AACSB accredited... some of which aren't even regionally accredited and are, instead, nationally accredited... which is still USDE- and/or CHEA-approved, so is legitimately "accredited." It's just my opinion, but unless one intends to compete with the really big dogs in the US employment marketplace, an MBA that's regionally- or nationally- accredited, but which isn't also AACSB accredited, is probably far more than adequate... especially if it's regionally-accredited. Legitimacy -- unless it's evidenced by USDE- and/or CHEA-approved accreditation -- and "fame" are not the criteria by which one should be measuring MBA programs! That is correct. And is the maintainer of the one and only web site where UK schools should be looked-up and verified as what the UK considers "accredited," in a US sense, either on this web page or this one. Look nowhere else. With its being listed on the aforementioned DFES web site being the only means of determining so about which anyone needs to worry.
Is that true or do they effect the same by authorizing/approving for Federal use? That's something I've wondered for a while now. That may be a tricky question but not a trick question.
Mmm... and one that has the stink of being potentially really interesting, too! So I want to make sure I truly understand it. Could you expand?
I'll change my deodorant. Do the regional and national accreditors need any Federal permission to do what they do? I'm guessing, and just guessing, that any Federal control is coming through the side door in the form of requirements for doing business with the Federal Gov.
I am not very familar with the case in US. Can I know why fame does not matter with a school? For example, given two MBA programmes, one from Harvard, and one from "the University of Unknown", both schools got AACSB accredited and regionally accredited....they teach something similar and well within budget.... is choosing a more famous a better idea? or choosing a school that potential employers have never heard of? I don't quite get your idea but there could be a problem of understanding as well.
