What's up with a MINI MBA and MINI MASTER'S DEGREES???

Hello all. I see that some colleges are advertising mini master's degrees and mini MBA's. Is anybody familiar with this type of program? Is this a real type of graduate degree or a fancy name for a graduate certificate? What do you say-"I have a mini master's degree, or do you say I have a master's degree"? How is this listed on a resume? Here is a piece of an add from Florida Technical University in reference to mini master's degrees::shocked1:

Florida Tech is ranked a Tier 1 Best National University by U.S. News & World Report. It’s rated by the Fiske Guide to Colleges and named a best buy in Barron’s Best Buys in College Education.

High Tech With a Human Touch
Florida Tech is proud to be part of a unique family of the nation’s top forward-thinking universities – world renowned for distinguished faculty, comprehensive curriculum and unyielding innovation. Whatever your field of study, with Florida Tech you can earn a nationally recognized For-Credit Graduate Certificate from a respected, regionally accredited university – 100% online:

• 
  [*]Mini MBA For-Credit Graduate Certificate/Healthcare Management
  [*]Mini MBA For-Credit Graduate Certificate/Information Technology Management
  [*]Mini MBA For-Credit Graduate Certificate/Internet Marketing
  [*]Mini MBA For-Credit Graduate Certificate/Management

For-Credit Graduate Certificate/Information Assurance and Cyber Security

 

They are pretty upfront about these being graduate credit based certificates and not degrees. I've not seen any actual regionally accredited masters under 30 credits. The MBA has become a marketing term. Listing this out on a resume as one of the full bonded titles such as; Mini MBA For-Credit Graduate Certificate/Management would be honest, but perhaps it would also trick HR, or their resume scanning software, when an MBA is a job requirement. Hopefully the resume is read closely enough that it is eventually caught.

 

Certainly not.

Maybe, or maybe not even that. If it doesn't carry transcripted graduate credit, and I believe most don't, it's not "graduate," it's a continuing education certificate outside of the graduate degree level.

Neither. It's not a degree.

 

Do not be confused - Florida Tech Online is a for-profit and Florida Institute of Technology is a non-profit - two completely different places.

 

I just looked them up and best I can tell they are one and the same. I can't find anything that states they are two different entities.

 

Yes, basically…

and yes…

But I wouldn't say this.

"Florida Tech Online" is a joint venture wherein University Alliance®, a division of the for-profit Bisk Education, Inc., markets distance learning programs whose credits, certificates and degrees ultimately come from the non-profit Florida Institute of Technology. We often hear of "public-private partnerships;" well, this is a non-profit–for-profit partnership.

Meanwhile, I think Florida Institute of Technology also offers some programs online that are independent of the "Florida Tech Online" joint venture, that don't flow through UniversityAlliance in the same way.

Adding further to the confusion, in 2009, the College of Business at the non-profit FIT was renamed the Nathan N. Bisk College of Business. Nathan N. Bisk is the founder of Bisk Education. But the company Bisk Education, if I'm not mistaken, won't have any role in a degree taken from the Bisk College of Business on-campus at FIT.

 

Wouldn't a "mini" anything really just be a certificate program in essence since it falls short of being a degree program? Kinda feels like putting lipstick on a pig . . . but maybe I'm wrong.

Any thoughts?

 

When I spoke to a rep at FIT, they said the Florida Tech Online degrees did not come from FIT. Maybe I misunderstood.

That is correct.