Easiest, Quickest, & Cheapest (LOL) Online & Regionally Accredited Business PhD/DBA

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by BadTeacher1, Jul 10, 2017.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    It's certainly understandable that you would not want to retake courses. However, most PhD programs are going to be approximately 60 credits beyond the Masters so there's no real "repeating" involved. As for credits from your Master's is concerned, for the most part, the entire Masters should transfer but that still leaves the 60 credits ahead of you. We sometimes hear from people who have started one PhD program and have elected to switch to another and they wonder how many of their doctoral level credits will transfer. The answer to that varied a bit from school to school but generally falls in th 6-9 range.
     
  2. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Oh. Surprisingly plausible option. However, note how even a degree from what appears to be a small for-profit in Bosnia-Herzegovina requires a peer reviewed paper.
     
  3. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    Stanislav, do you have any more feedback on this university, or university in this region?
    From your casual assessment does it has the same accreditation as public institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
     
  4. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    It does not appear implausible to me. I found a couple of apparently government web sites listing University Vitez among other recognized schools. One possible caveat: it seems that education is delegated to "canton" level, each of which has it's own Ministry of Education. BiH is a weird federation consisting of Respublika Srbska (which has a central MoE), "Federation of BiH" (which doesn't, and schools are regulated by each canton separately), and a little district over which the above two share jurisdiction. I have no idea whether there are differences in prestige among cantonal recognition, but it seems they're legally equal. FWIW, Vitez is apparently in "Central Bosnia" canton, which apparently does NOT have its own public university. All private schools are fairly new, and essentially for-profit.

    This is similar to Ukrainian schools like IUBL in Kherson that was discussed on thios forum. That school has extremely modest reputation back home, but, yes, it has mainstream accreditation and can award little blue plastic diplomas with the Trident (national "small" Coat of Arms) on it all recognized schools award. I believe it's the same here.
     
  5. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    Much appreciated, my fellow Canadian!
     
  6. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Hey, that's what this forum is for.

    Huh: BiH, a country of about 3.5 million, has 27 HE institutions. The word "mushroomed" comes to mind. Then again, major cities in Ukraine are kind of like this as well. In fact, the city of Kyiv comfortably beats this total; most of these are even public. Insane.
     
  7. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    It appears that, as is the vogue now, BiH had created an independent accrediting body in 2014: Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance. And yes, University Vitez is listed as accredited, in 2016 for 4 years. So yep: this has Bosnian version of mainstream recognition.
     
  8. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I'm actually not sure why that's amazing. The U.S. has 4,140 colleges and universities, which is about the same number per capita.
     
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    From the University's page:

    " Vitez is legally registered as a private higher education institution. The University performs its activities in accordance with the laws of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the laws of the Middle Bosnia Canton."

    So it's "legal." - OK, I could legally register a school in BVI or Panama, too. No doubt it has some degree-granting authority, but what equivalent to institutional accreditation does this one have? Would its degrees have mainstream standing at home? Abroad?

    Middle Bosnia Canton? Well, we all know that Cantonal Approval does not give degrees any standing in Switzerland. Is this the same? 7,500 euros and fast - yes. Accredited? I'm not sure. Convince me.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 13, 2017
  10. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    a good approximation for me of a suitable accreditation is what the host country's public universities are using for their accreditation.
     
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Above, I gave a link to what appears to be federal accreditation agency for Bosnia. It states that this university was accredited in 2016 (the Agency itself came to be in 2014), for the period of 4 years. This strongly suggests that this school is GAAP, small and obscure as it probably is.
     
  12. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    University of Sarajevo (the oldest and biggest HEI) is also listed as accredited by the Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance, along with what seems like all the public universities. I found a pdf on U. Sarajevo site describing accreditation regulations, and the name of the Agency seems to match. Also, public University of Tuzla also boasts about gaining this accreditation. This pretty much checks out.
     
  13. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Sorry, Stanislav. I missed it, first time around. Right. The school is accredited. You, of course, are infallible. :smile:

    J.
     
  14. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    So for under US$9, for an accredited Ph.D., are we in the good find arena? For Canadians, it is about 40% higher. The central bank just increased interest rate so that should be good for the value of the C$ - bad for mortgage holders but hey I am biased.
     
  15. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Yeah, if requirements are "cheap, fast, and accredited", this is a contender. More affordable than say Swiss Management Center, better structure than Central Nicaragua, and one can answer the question "is it accredited?" with a simple "yes". Now, I can imagine than for some students say Heriot-Watt can be a better value, but mileages always vary.
    Question: when you hear "Bosnia", do you think "Europe" first, or "that country that had a bloody ethnic conflict in the 90ies"? The fact that it is out of headlines tells me it went a long way since these days, and is quite fascinating place: home to 3 nationalities (separated by religion more than anything else), heavily Muslim Slavic land. But what are perceptions here?
     
  16. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I totally agree, the DBA/PhD is not really meant to train you to become an online adjunct but just works as a filter as few people are willing to pay $100K to make $2K per course. It will take about 50 courses or about 2 years of full time work to recover the investment.

    I know some people that managed to do the Walden DBA in 3 years part time but it is not cheap.

    A cheap and fast option would be to do a PhD from a UGC accredited school in India, the program below is about $600 US per semester, you could complete the program for less than 4000. You can complete a PhD in education.

    Department of Education | Pragyan International University

    The school is UGC accredited so it would be evaluated as RA equivalent.

    Not exactly a prestigious school but might do the job for cheap online adjunct positions that mainly just need a PhD to satisfy accreditation requirements.

    I used to be a full time online adjunct, you can make about 70K to 80K if you are willing to put the 50 to 60 hrs a week and willing to take your laptop to every vacation.

    Even online schools prefer people with better degrees, many online adjuncts hold degrees from unknown or online schools but you also have a good share of instructors with PhDs from traditional and well known schools.

    I am not too sure how a cheap degree from India would score for an online gig in the US but my guess is that is better that no PhD at all.
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    It's not as cheap as Pragyan, but the University of the Cumberlands now offers a DBA that's $30K tuition total. I don't know whether that's the cheapest RA DBA out there, but it has to be close.
    So with them, you'd only have to teach fifteen or so courses to make up for the cost. (There's also the tremendous opportunity cost of the time it takes, but for some reason everyone seems to discount that completely.)

    Doctor of Business Administration - University of the Cumberlands
     
  18. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Good find, 30K is quite reasonable. Yes, you can get cheaper with schools like Azteca, Pragyan, etc but they are not going to add too much to your resume and people normally judge you based on your terminal degree. If I were to do a PhD at Pragyan, I would not mention it for professional positions and just keep it my resume for cheap adjunct positions that need the doctorate.

    Most people will not be impressed with a PhD from Pragyan in India, it satisfies the minimum requirement but I don't think it would score very high when it comes to hiring decisions even for cheap adjunct positions.

    As you are already going to put the work for a doctorate, I think it would be better to pay the 30K and get one from a credible school, besides the use for adjunct positions, you want to be proud of the doctorate and be able to tell people the school of graduation.

    30K is only about 15 classes or 6 months of adjunct work so the payoff is not so bad. Some schools offer financial support to adjuncts for doctorates so you might be able to recover some money from this source.



    Some people have mentioned certifications such as CPA, PMP, CFA, etc. I think these can report more value than a PhD from an online virtual school in India.
     
  19. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Another good find.

    I believe California Southern is around that or slightly cheaper. Heriot Watt is cheaper, Bosnian school is cheaper still, so these might be better choices for adjunct purposes. Indian, South African, and Nicaragua schools are cheaper still, but might be a liability with some HR departments. We know SA schools are quite good; people outside this forum might not. India seem to change its recognition rules few times a year, so something to keep in mind.

    I like that Cumberlands have a nice, traditional name, and is non-profit. Perhaps it can be used to find full-time position in sectarian schools like itself, or community colleges. I believe Heriot-Watt can be well-received at smaller to medium RA schools of more secular kind. It lacks AACSB accreditation, but is actually a rather impressive, big, research active public university - comparable to a mid-tier RA state flagship or maybe school #2 at a state. It is ranked 401-500 in the world by THE: so it believes it's comparable to schools like Georgia State, Florida International, Kent State, Lehigh etc. Not too shabby at all. Finally, the Bosnian school may very well work at community colleges, especially if you happen to be from the Balkans or Central Europe.
     
  20. BadTeacher1

    BadTeacher1 New Member

    Thank you for the perspective. I have really enjoyed reading all of your posts on the forum as they have a lot of value. You're one of the few people who seem to "get" online teaching.

    My main concern with international schools is the actual transcripts and perceived value by those hiring. I assume if you get a degree from PIU or something even better "perceived" like Heriot-Watt that you then submit the degree to WES or another equivalency firm.

    Then, each time you need transcripts for a job, you request them from WES rather than the issuing school? I just can't imagine PIU or even HW being part of these large transcript services that most North American schools have where you can get the transcript sent via email in seconds.

    I looked at HW and it seems like it's a manual paper/emailed application each time to get a transcript. Some of these online schools want transcripts in a week, and I don't imagine HW could directly provide this. Right on their form it says it will take 2 weeks, but that would be even more if they don't accept requests via email and only via mailed copies. Does WES have as equally slow of a process?
     

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