Azteca University and Nicaraguan Central University

I had removed that quote before you replied after thinking about it within a 10 minute time limit. In any case, I agree wholeheartedly. It is still a gray area so many evaluators don't want to deal with it if it is not a black and white comparison. We've gotten some interesting evaluations for ENEB's degree which is a Masters Propio.

 

LOL! That explains why when I was hitting reply on your post the other half kept coming up missing. I thought it was a glitch, so I manually copied and pasted it into the post quote, lol.

You are right though, in other countries it can come across as a gray area. What I take issue with these evaluators on is how they act as if the systems in their own countries don't have similar gray areas, like all the gray areas in the United States with regard to the whole RA/NA thing.

At first I wasn't sure about RFValve's suspicions, but I mean c'mon, the reasoning (or lack of thereof) these evaluators are using is pure nonsense, and if there is one thing I know about life it's that when reasoning doesn't make sense it's almost always bull.

 

It looks like in Canada, most evaluators will not consider it equivalent.

For some reason UCN has been blocked by some evaluators.

It might have political and non legit reasons, but to be pragmatic, just follow an RA american or Canadian degree to be safe. If you want to follow the foreign route, maybe the list of schools that are accepted by CRA can be a guide.

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-return/completing-a-tax-return/deductions-credits-expenses/line-32300-your-tuition-education-textbook-amounts/recognized-educational-institutions-outside-canada/universities-higher-educational-institutions.html

 

UCN has been blocked by several evaluators in the USA and Canada. I believe they just don't like the validation schemes with different universities in different countries that they use. Any legal but non-accredited or propio degree will be considered official when partnering with UCN who issues their own diploma. Ironically, many universities are offering courses towards degrees through external MOOC partners so I don't really see the difference.

 

I just checked the universities from the Dominican Republic that are recognized and I didn't even know the Universidad Catolica Nordestana (UCNE) before today. However, better universities in the DR are missing. So, it must be that the universities themselves apply to be recognized or there is a weird/political criteria to list them.

 

That would work fine for people living in the U.S. or Canada, but one of the countless number of propio degree holders from Spain is bound to get screwed in North America. In fact, given what some of these evaluators are doing we can be sure that many Spaniards have already been screwed in North America.

 

It looks like Nicaragua does not have the propio degrees, so it is up to the university to recognize credits from other legitimate institutions.

 

I forgot to mention that it is very common for universities in Latin America and Spain to partner to provide dual programs (Doble titulacion). For instance, UNAPEC and UQO have Master in Project Management. UPAEP has Ph.D. programs with Universitat Rovira I Virgil, Universidad de Malaga, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. This allows the students from both universities to validate their degrees by default when moving to any of those countries.

 

Interesting information Manuel.

 

University of Liverpool uses Laureate International to deliver courses. Laureate uses different companies to design courses. An evaluator can argue that a degree from the University of Liverpool is not valid because they outsource course design and delivery to a company that most likely hire another companies that design courses by using people that they most likely are not PhD experts in the field.lThe difference is that the transcript does not come from company X but from the University of liverpool so an evaluator cannot know if this was delivered by a company or by the University of Liverpool.
I agree with all of you here that ENEB and University of Central Nicaragua are not doing something different from other schools but they are more vulnerable because they are smaller operations with less cash to defend themselves. If the same was done to the University of Liverpool, because this one makes millions with these online outsourced programs, they can probably hire good lawyers to sue WES and whoever. They also are not such a treat to some American Schools because the programs that they offer are expensive.

 

I agree with all your arguments. However, one must be pragmatic too. Do I think that UCN is any less that any of the international operations conducted by some schools from the UK, Australia and US? probably no. However, one has to be careful about the investment of time and effort in a credential. I am sure if you shop around, you might be able to find an obscure school in Phillipines, Pakistan, or other English speaking country that can offer a similar product but with less attention and better chance of recognition. Some schools in Mexico might fit the bill but still in the range of 15K as someone stated here. UNISA is another option that will not have recognition problems but they have the problem of lack of customer support as some people have stated here. Every option has its pros and cons, just we have to be aware.

 

I agree with you. It is a business at the end of the day. I would like to also blame UCN because they need to put more effort into their website that is dedicated to those international students. It really looks like a middle school student decided to create a website to scam people. Aesthetics and first impression matter...

 

In the old days, North central University PhD used to cost 5K also. They were hardly criticized also because their website looked horrible. Eventually got RA accreditation and now considered an option comparable to Capella and other similar Universities.

 

These programs fill a niche. Most people going for schools like Northcentral University, Walden, Trident, Capella (etc) are not deluding themselves into believing they will get tenure track faculty positions at State Universities and not for profit four year Universities.

They are getting these degrees to fulfill goals, to get pay raises at Community Colleges, add to credibility as adjuncts, or give themselves a career advantage (outside academia). When they come with a 60, 70, 90, or six figure price tag, it is hard to justify. Some say "who cares" and borrow the money (Student Loans) only to realize the mistake later. We have had people post some of those stories. There is the dream of what the doctorate will do for (prestige and opening lucrative doors) and the reality. The barista at Starbucks does not get excited and call you "doctor" while throwing in a free pumkin loaf.

Some of the overseas equivalent of accredited options provide an affordable alternative (perhaps without the stigma of US online for profits).

 

There is also the risk that cheap fast track university education can create just credential inflation. Lets take a look at the adjunct below:

Macon, Don Kirk
PhD, Universidad Central de Nicaragua
EdD, Northcentral University
EdS, Northwestern State University
MLIS, Universidad Central de Nicaragua
MEd, Universidad Central de Nicaragua
MA, American Public University
MA, California State University, Dominguez Hills
BA, Charter Oak State College
BA, Sun Ross State University

https://www.caluniversity.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/catalog.pdf


3 credentials from UCN and another 6 to become an adjunct.

 

We don't know if any of those are fast (cheap is relative). It can be a problem for some who love education. They add degree after degree (sometimes in different fields). Not sure whether it begins to look like overkill. The life of someone stuck in adjunct mode can be sad. There was an article about a woman who was an adjunct at a University and had an office but one day woke up and realized that she was kidding herself. She had the trappings of being a professor but was never going to be a tenured track professor just a very poorly paid adjunct who was barely making it and pretending she was a regular professor. Packed up her little car one day and drove away to a new career and gave up the dream.

 

I can relate to him. I used to be a professional adjunct, I was able to make 100K+ CAN a year but for this I had to complete 3 masters degrees in different subjects so I can get enough work and earned several IT certifications. For you to make a living as an adjunct, you cannot rely on one subject so piling up degrees is a way to remain employable. The other thing is as you become a professional learner yourself by teaching several subjects, it gets easier to earn degrees as you develop fast learning skills.

However, in his case he has two doctorates. My guess is that the EdD from NorthCentral was the second doctorate. The question is what motivated him to do a second doctorate as he has several masters degrees that already made him eligible to teach several subjects. A potential answer is that he did not get much recognition for his Nicaraguan doctorate or he found that it was not getting enough work because of the Nicaraguan brand or simply he could not get a NACES evaluation.

He lists his EdD as his last degree but he also seems to be full time at the American College of Education so at the end, the second doctorate might have paid off.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-kirk-macon-ph-d-ed-d-ba45b25/

 

This is my experience as well. Once you become a professional adjunct for too long, it is very hard to break in as a permanent tenured professor. I did the adjunct thing for about 6 years but I couldn't do it for life, it is very stressful to keep learning new subjects to remain employable and keep working at several institutions. I was able to land a full time job in education but people that do this for too long, normally never get a full time tenured position as employers would rather hire a new graduate than an old person that is burned out. Also, most of the adjuncts do not follow the path of the full time tenure profile, we earn education over the years on a part time basis and we lack focus as we need to teach several subjects to remain alive. Most full time tenured professors come from full time programs and are focused on a particular subject. The idea that an adjunct position is going to lead to a full time position keeps you alive but as you get older, you give up easily as it is very hard to teach 7 to 8 classes a term just to make a living.

 

Please stop with the Google Fu. We get it. You don't think UCN is a good career play. Fine. Don't enroll.

So far you went through a US Centric social media website to "prove" that UCN has no real standing within the academic world in Nicaragua and now you're picking on some random adjunct who very clearly enjoys earning degrees. This isn't a "6 degrees from UCN to become an adjunct" situation. This is a "here's an adjunct who happens to have a lot of degrees including some from UCN." That's a very different situation.

You will notice that Dr. Macon also has an RA EdD which more than qualifies him to teach at the university level, to say nothing of his two RA Masters degrees. You will also note, if you checked his LinkedIn profile (which I will NOT link here because I don't want to screw with his search engine results since this forum has very high domain authority and there is no reason this guy needs strangers picking apart his academic history within the first 10 results of a search of his name) that he was also a public school teacher for a good many years.

We go through this nonsense with every school. Those in favor look for people with good jobs who hold degrees from there to prove that the place is legit. Those not in favor try to show that everyone who earned a degree from there is relegated to the lowest rungs of their industry and permanently barred from all forms of academia forever because their resumes are tainted with inferior degrees.

Enough already.

Not everyone aspires to be a full professor. I certainly do not. I am more than happy when I adjunct because it is a piece of my portfolio career whereby all of the various things I do that generate revenue all play together. I choose to work as a Human Resources professional, teach Human Resources and to do a small amount of consulting on the side as opposed to working HR during the day and having a weekend gig as a college sports announcer and a summer job doing roofing. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, it's just how I choose to roll, as the kids say.

It is entirely possible that the individual you presented here is a retired teacher and now enjoys teaching at the college level perhaps because they may not need to or because it offers the flexibility they desire to work around their lives. These things are incredibly common.

Back to the degree issue...

We have seen faculty at legitimate public school sporting PhDs from Atlantic International University, Almeda and many other schools of highly questionable status. The fact of the matter is that as much as we all aspire to a uniform "recognition" scheme there is none in the U.S. None. Nada. Bupkes (to channel my own inner Levicoff). Which means that any degree from any school is only as "recognized" as your current employer. I could apply for a job tomorrow and, despite my MBA having unquestionable recognition, someone could say "Ha, University of Scranton, that sounds like a bullshit school" and toss my resume in the trash as they move on to a candidate with a degree from the decidedly more badass sounding Trident University.

The biggest obstacle to recognition for a UCN degree, in my speculative opinion, would be if the holder of such a degree doesn't speak a lick of Spanish. We live in an increasingly globalized environment. I think many employers would be OK with a candidate sporting a degree from Nicaragua. The vast majority in the US likely won't require an evaluation either. However, if you have a degree from a country where you have no easily identifiable link and do not speak the language it starts to send off alarm bells in the heads of others. Some of this is a uniquely American bias whereby many Americans are under the impression that any US student who studies overseas does so because they couldn't get in to a good U.S. school. I had a hiring manager in IT refuse to even do a phone interview with a highly qualified candidate once because his degrees were from a very well respected Scandinavian university since "If he couldn't get in to a U.S. school what good is he?" This bias shifts a bit when people assume that your degree was earned in a country of origin or where you have a very close connection. So this same manager might not bat an eye at Neuhaus sporting a degree from a German or Austrian university.

However, right or wrong, if an undeniably white guy like me walks into an interview with a Pakistani or Indian degree, a Germanic surname and indicates they speak none of the languages native to India or Pakistan....it's going to cause a distraction. It will draw attention to something that you don't actually want attention drawn to. You don't want your interviewer sitting and pondering your degree or your college. You want your interviewer checking off the degree box and waxing poetic about what an amazing candidate you are and thinking of ways to coax you into working for them. That's the target. If your would-be employer is going to sit there wondering if your degree is fake or if it is claimed but was never earned or, frankly, if you're some kind of sex tourist who spends all of their time in the Philippines earning doctorates and engaging in behaviors that are illegal for US citizens to engage in even when overseas...you've got a problem.

This is not unique to foreign degrees. It happens with degrees from schools with terrible names. It happens with odd or highly uncommon sounding college majors. I often tell the story of when an applicant asked me, while interviewing him, where I went to school and when I said "The University of Scranton" he began laughing. He stopped since I wasn't laughing and then said "Oh, is that a real school? I thought you were making an Office joke." The only thing my little Jesuit school did "wrong" was to have the misfortune of being located in and named after a largely insignificant small city in Pennsylvania that was chosen as the setting for a US reboot of a UK sitcom that became wildly popular.

It doesn't matter if 100 other jobs would never hire you because of your degree. What matters is the one that does. If you're employed and owe it, in any part, to your degree then you've won the game. Now sit back and contribute to your 401k until you can stop playing.