MBA program with ***SHORT*** classes?

Hello, all. Great forum you have here.

I'm halfway through a brick-and-mortar evening MBA program at UNLV and I'm extremely burnt out. I'm looking for possible alternatives for completing the degree via a distance-learning program instead. After browsing these forums, I was attracted to the Edinburgh Business School, but their US student advisor told me that I could not get US-based federal student loans to attend their distance-learning program. I need my Stafford Loans to pay for everything, so that was a dealbreaker.

Here is a prioritized list of what I'm looking for, could you please suggest any distance MBA programs you think will fit the bill?

1. Eligible for US federal student loans (Stafford, Grad PLUS)

2. Regionally and AACSB accredited (or equivalent)

3. SHORT (~1 month) terms for classes. The 16-week semester system is killing my motivation, interest, and general will to live. I know that I would do much better in a program with short classes taken one-at-a-time instead of taking 2-to-4 different classes spread out over 4-to-5 months.

4. Ideally, I'd like to transfer in some of my 24 completed MBA credits. I've already taken Statistics, Law & Ethics, Organizational Behavior, Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, and Information Systems. My undergraduate degree is in Economics so if I can get a waiver in that subject, that would be great, too.

5. Decent reputation. (Although I'm coming from UNLV, so it's not like I can do much worse! ) Also, I don't plan to stay in Las Vegas forever, so a distance program that is better-known nationally (or even just ranked!) would probably be better for me than my current unranked local brick-and-mortar program, anyway.

6. Assessment based more on solo work like exams and individual papers, instead of on group projects or lots of small homework assignments. Difficulty is not an issue (I rock at exams and papers), I just prefer to avoid tedious amounts of busywork and groupwork hassles.

7. Relatively inexpensive.

Criteria 1-3 are must-haves, criteria 4-7 are nice-to-haves.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions or other ideas, thanks!!!

 

Harrison College of Business-Graduate at Southeast Missouri State University. However they might not be amenable to many transfer credits. Schools like Excelsior and TESC, while not AACSB, will accept more transfer credits. All are good schools, just not AACSB accredited.

Also, there is National University, a good RA school, that offers an ACBSP MBA and their classes are one month long.

I'm pretty sure that all of the schools are open to Stafford loans.

 

One more thing: I'm pretty sure that AACSB and "relatively inexpensive" are mutually exclusive terms.

 

Jacksonville University is about $9K and AACSB and University of Louisiana at Monroe is 30 credits, AACSB, and under $10K. Not sure about the transfer of credits. Is there an option to finish your MBA from what ever school you have your 24 credits from?

 

I would recommend you to complete your MBA at UNLV because you're more than halfway. If you're transferring, most of the school would accept no more than 3 courses. Which means you have along time to complete the degree.

 

If you wouldn't mind a "Christian perspective" you can't go wrong with the Corban University MBA. Courses are only 5 weeks in length and it has a 16 month completion time: Corban University - A private Christian University in the Pacific Northwest (Corban is regionally accredited, but does not have programmatic accreditation)

 

Although I'm halfway done, the UNLV MBA program is making me miserable. My grades are tanking and I'm dreading the next semester. Just thinking about it makes me get sick to my stomach and reach for my Xanax. So I'd really like to find an alternative -- having to repeat some classes in another program but finishing is better than dropping out completely because I'm too burnt out to finish at UNLV.

Knowing my learning style and how I get and stay motivated, I would do much better with shorter classes emphasizing individual work (instead of endless BS group projects). Pretty much the opposite of how UNLV's program works.

Thanks for the suggestions! Please keep them coming!

 

Finish at UNLV. You're not going to find a program with a more recognizable name that offers 1 month terms anywhere, and certainly none ranked in the top-50. Once you're outside of the top20 programs rankings mean next to nothing anyway. UNLV will be recognized by most employers as a decent state school with quality programs.
I think someone recommended Jacksonville State, that is a quality state school with regional name recognition so if you want to live in the southeast (especially Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia) that might be a good option for you as they offer the shorter terms you're looking for and are priced right.

 

As others have said in other ways.

If you make AACSB accreditation the requirement you will be hard pressed to find reasonable cost and flexible semesters as options. Additionally, you can forget about transferring more than 9 credits, if any. Equivalency to AACSB in the States, is AACSB accreditation. ACBSP doesn't measure up in terms of stature yet.

My own experience when I was floundering (end of last semester until about two weeks ago) was that I am better off finishing at UMass and doing everything I can to work with my instructors to leverage any means by which I could finish the work assigned. In my case I hit a wall upon getting to the capstone-level material in Finance and Strategy.. this stated, I'm happy I gutted it out to this point.

Best of luck to you.
IT

 

Have you looked at Baker College? Long time ago when I was looking at a variety of MBA programs, Baker College was the quickest, and the price was reasonable. Not sure if that is still the case. They are not AACSB.

 

For non-AACSB, the Baker price is still a little on the high side. National University or Salem International University would be cheaper, and these also have 4-week classes.

 

I know my son is happy with this college. Online with six week classes. MBA with or without a concentration.

www.macu.edu

 

City University City University of Seattle - Graduate and Undergraduate Degrees Online and in Class offers five-week Fast Track courses.

 

City University City University of Seattle - Graduate and Undergraduate Degrees Online and in Class offers five-week Fast Track courses.

 

Personally I'm going to have to go with the "stay with UNLV" crowd. An MBA is not an easy undertaking. I loved Ashford University but by the time I finished my MBA with them I was burnt out to the extreme. In fact it was so stressful that during that time I gained almost 40 pounds because I spent most of my waking hours either at work or doing school work instead of taking care of myself. (I've since lost the weight in case you were wondering). Ashford's program is only 6 week semesters but they were very intense and at times stressful. If you shorten the length of your courses you may only speed up the burnout process. Maybe you just need to take a semester off? Burn out is no light hearted matter and can affect your health, your relationships and ultimately your success. Personally I consider people who have hit the wall to be in as serious of a mental condition as those suffering from depression or anxiety and often the only thing you can do is take a break. Transfering schools will not cure burnout but if you are that unhappy with the school itself, maybe you need a change. If it's just the material or the idea of doing all of that work, transfering schools and losing credit may only compound the problem.

 

EC transfer-- strings attached

Took a look at EC's MBA today, as your post intrigued me.

They allow you to transfer up to 24 units, but have a five-course (15 unit?) foundations course requirement. Any courses you transfer or waive for the foundations count against that 24 unit limit. So, if you use 15 units of external foundations courses, that would effectively limit your graduate transfer to 9 units. Not the best deal in my opinion, given the $455 per credit Excelsior charges for their classes.

 

Yes, it's hard to see the appeal of an EC MBA versus the numerous options available. I am about to graduate from EC, and I fear they may start advertising it to me. They do have a dual Health Sciences BS-to-MBA that looks like fun, though.

Phillip

 

When I met the requirements to graduate for my BS in Psychology, the Evaluation summary got changed into basically one big advert for their Master of Arts in Liberal Studies. So, yeah, since you're graduating with a business degree, you'll probably get the advert for the MBA. I did have one advisor recommend the MBA over second BS (in General Business or MIS) there, but with what was needed, I could get the bachelors done in around 15 weeks (the time length of the required class through EC) if I had the spare time and money to throw at it, as most everything else I could fulfill by CLEPs/DSSTs or Straighterline stuff.

 

Thank you all for the advice. I guess I am stuck toughing it out at UNLV. To save my sanity, however, I'm going to downgrade to part-time there and spend my extra time looking into other distance-learning options that are more relevant to my immediate and long-term career goals.