Azteca University and Nicaraguan Central University

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Garp, Mar 25, 2021.

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  1. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    I have read a couple of threads here on these two schools. The joint Azteca and Nicaraguan Central PhD seems to offer some interesting possibilities at $5300. One difficulty is that the contact from the European web site is not very responsive. Will try the IOU site.

    What is the benefit of the joint degree? Is Azteca possibly titulo proprio and the Nicaraguan program adds the oficial?
     
  2. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    Be aware that WES is not evaluating either Azteca or NCU degrees at this time. I don't know about other evaluators. If you don't need to have your degree evaluated then that could work out. IIRC, yes, Azteca is titulo proprio and NCU is official.
     
  3. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Thanks Rachel. The proprio isn't bad and the official is even better. Cost is obviously excellent. Problem seems to be to get their English language division to respond. Which if it isn't good up front may not get better down the road. Perhaps they are on Spring Break and Bertold is partying.
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2021
  4. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    If I were going to do this I would just go straight to Azteca. They are directly approved and recognized officially in Mexico through the RVOE, and the price is about $5300 for a Doctorate if you pay all at once, a little more if you pay in installments. No reason to go through the Nicaragua deal for that unless it offers a degree program Azteca doesn't offer on its own.

    I'll just say this though: Azteca's postings here weren't very professional, and I found them to be totally unprofessional, lazy, and rude when I was just trying to get a basic question about their tuition prices answered outside the board. That would've been enough to make me steer clear of them personally, but luckily I was never considering them, I just wanted to know the information.
     
  5. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Unprofessional, lazy and rude would be good reason not to deal with them. If they are like that while representing the program and trying to sell you on it, what happens after they get your money and you are trying to complete the program. Working on a doctorate is certainly stressful enough without ugly customer service in the mix.
     
  6. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Actually, Azteca has no RVOE to grant doctorates, they are limited to grant few bachelors degrees and few masters with ROVE. If you want a cheap school that has an RVOE you can try Universitam that has an RVOE for a PhD and also provide a NACES evaluation report, my guess is that they might accept English as they are located in Tijuana Mexico. The problem is that the school is in Spanish but you can ask if they accept an English dissertation. It is a better option than Azteca. The Mexican law does not prevent Azteca from granting PhDs but these are not officially recognized. Nicaragua is a different story, Universities are autonomous and can grant PhDs but some evaluation services do not consider PhDs from Nicaragua strong enough to be equivalent to American PhDs.


    https://universitam.com/oferta-educativa/


    In Costa Rica, UNEM grants PhDs but more expensive (15K) https://uneminternational.com/pricing/. UNEM has accreditation by CONESUP but not by SINAES that is the Costa Rican gold standard so it is at the discretion of the evaluation service to give it RA status or not.

    In general, none of the programs are ideal and have limitations. I have seen some faculty teaching with a PhDs from UCN or UNEM in the US but I think mainly as adjuncts. I am not so sure if these programs would be strong enough for even community college full time teaching.
     
  7. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

  8. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

  9. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    There is another issue. Azteca is not specifying which degrees are valid and which are not, because when speaking with them they assured me all of their degrees were valid. Now, this could've meant they were valid because they were validated through UCN or some other program, but that to me is deceptive if it's not specified upfront.
     
  10. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    So, sounds like if you are doing a doctorate and not getting it validated through UCN, you want the EdD and not the PhD (grado proprio) as they have the RVOE approval for the EdD.
     
  11. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Doctorates in other fields of Education are valid in the sense that they can grant this degree but they will not be recognized by the minister of education for a license to practice in Mexico. As most of these degrees are to be used outside Mexico, it is really at the discretion of the local authorities to accept them or not.

    In few words, these foreign operations are of no use to Mexicans because they are not official. But in the USA, if a NACES evaluation service feels like the Azteca doctorate is valid, then it can be used.

    The confusion here is that in some countries, the minister of education recognizes institutions and not degrees. In Mexico, the minister recognizes degrees.

    As you get a dual degree with Azteca, the legality comes from UCN as in Nicaragua universities are independent and can grant the PhD. However, one would need to go to Nicaragua and ask local people about the perception of a PhD from UCN for local jobs such as academic and research positions, it is quite possible that UCN is a very small operations with no research facilities and their PhD qualifications would not be considered serious in that country.

    In few words, as you are getting a foreign qualification from a school that you don't know, UCN can be just one small building in the middle of a busy mall. In Mexico some Universities share space with restaurants, taco places, etc and offer PhDs, they are legal but local people would know that these degrees are not serious enough for research or academic positions.

    In the US is similar, I once went to the facilities of Jones International University now defunct and it was just some office space in a building. I counted less than 10 people in the University. They used to offer a doctorate, this operation was probably smaller than Azteca or UCN but able to grant DBAs. The DBA was accredited but not so easy to convince employers in the US that this degree would be serious enough for an academic position. There is a reason why the school died.

    In Costa Rica the situation is similar than Mexico or the US, Education is business and you have many very small operations offering PhDs, MBA, etc. This is why SINAES became a second accreditation system that provides an extra level of approval to Universities.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2021
  12. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    The concern is that they're offering 16 other Doctorates in various fields besides education that they are not registered with RVOE to grant:

    https://univ-azteca.edu.mx/doctoral-degree/

    So that puts a person in a titulo propio type situation, which is not a bad situation per se, but if they plan to transfer credits or teach in the U.S. (and in the likelihood the school asks for an evaluation from WES, or another evaluator), they will be at the mercy of the American foreign credential evaluators, and we know that one major evaluator (WES) has already stopped evaluating them and UCN, and at least one of UCN's other partners (SMC).

    Some of the programs match joint programs they've at least in the past claimed to have some kind of joint deal with UCN for, so that must be how they're validating some of them, but that's mere speculation because there is no way to be sure what they're really doing until they send the sheepskin since they're not being entirely upfront about it. Then at that point you might be surprised to find UCN on your diploma and transcript even though you didn't want it.
     
  13. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    WES normally blocks any foreign operation that starts granting massive numbers of degrees. Technically Azteca should be RA equivalent for an EdD but probably WES noticed a flood of requests to evaluate this University coming from Africa and other far places from Mexico so the most common reaction is to stop evaluating because you might suspect possible fraud or abuse. Most small operations like Azteca should grant few doctorates a year but if you start getting hundreds of requests from a tiny operation in Mexico, you think that there is a high risk of fraud and just stop evaluating.

    If you google UCN and Azteca, you will notice many operations coming from Africa. The arrangement is that a local company gives the course and Azteca just prints the diploma, I think this is fine for professional masters as we have discussed in the past but PhDs should require a higher level of control where Azteca would need to be the one evaluating the dissertations but it you check the way is sold, it looks like the foreign company conducts all the teaching including dissertation work so the operation becomes lose. Also, WES wonders how Azteca can grant hundreds of doctorates in different fields if themselves have no faculty with PhDs in all the fields that they grant degrees.
     
  14. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Have they actually said that?

    I'm not asking to be snarky. If that's the hypothesis, we could consider just asking them directly so we'd know for sure.
     
  15. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    University of America in the US does a similar thing, they registered in California as a high school with a University name and then bought some schools in Latin America. They cannot legally grant degrees in the US as they are a high school so they grant it from a tiny school in Latin America that has the rights to grant it.

    Very clever to register a high school and just call it university so they don't shut you down:
    https://www.cde.ca.gov/schooldirectory/details?cdscode=33752006142293

    Most of these operations just play with the legal system so they can grant you a legal degree but the intention is deception and this is the problem. If I register at the University of American because I want an American degree but I get a degree from a school in Colombia, this is a problem for the student.

    Universities are business, they use any trick in the book to get your cash but we have to be aware if the intention of the school is really to educate or just to make a quick buck.
     
  16. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    It is a trend, they have blocked all the similar operations including Azteca, San Juan de la Cruz, UCN, Indian Board of Alternative Medicines, etc. It is just an observation but they will not advertise. Open an account with them and try to enter any of the names above, they will say that they don't evaluate them.
     
  17. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    I'd say based on this that the safest course is to do an EdD from Azteca since they are authorized to grant them. The PhD would be grado proprio and they openly state that fact. Still from a recognized institution (perhaps using adjunct faculty in those fields).
     
  18. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Does Azteca offer an EdD with RVOE accreditation? When I looked at their RVOE listings I found nothing over a Master's degree in Education.
     
  19. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Yes, I saw it AND someone posted something from a government website (see thread above). They are authorized to offer an EdD.
    The PhD's are definitely "Grado Propio".
     
  20. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    The idea of latin schools selling PhDs to Americans is not new. We have a full thread here for MIGS, a mexican school with a tiny operation in Mexico that was offering PhDs in all the fields. The old Rich Douglas was involved with this school as a student at least. At some point, some people figured out legal issues as lack of RVOEs to grant PhDs and lack of authorization to sell PhDs in the US. They were shutdown, I don't think they even exists in Mexico anymore.


    Azteca seems to be MIGS rewind, the 5K they charge for the PhD degree is high because there are plenty of proper accredited PhD granting schools that charge less in Mexico, the bottom line here is the use of English to complete degrees.

    A better bet would be to chase after a proper accredited school in Mexico to grant PhDs and negotiate an English dissertation. Money talks, I am sure more than one would accept them.

    The prospect student should also acknowledge the limitations of a non ranked Mexican school in a resume. Good for an adjunct gig or boost a counselor practice that now can use the PhD title or the consultant that can get more work if they can add PhD in a business card but I don't see this degree as an option to land a full time gig as a professor even at the CC level. Check now and see if you can find Azteca PhD holders working full time in academics, I couldn't find any.
     

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