Online DBA $12,000 TOTAL fee

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by Acolyte, Aug 11, 2021.

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  1. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

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  2. smartdegree

    smartdegree Active Member

    Interesting. A doctorate titulo propio. I wonder how that will be viewed by credential evaluators....
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2021
  3. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Since the school grants a transcript "
    Detailed Transcript with 180 ECTS Credits (DBA) issued by Universidad Catolica De Murcia (UCAM), Spain", I would say that you stand good chances of getting it evaluated as a doctorate in the US or Canada. The price is attractive and the school is prestigious, the risk here is that the doctorate might not be evaluated in the future as equivalent as a doctorate as it is not official.
     
  4. AsianStew

    AsianStew Moderator Staff Member

    I was wondering, are there anything close to this? I know about the Masters, but the are rare exceptions for the Doctorate level, mainly see those that are the Level 8 Strategic Management > DBA top up. I am curious if there are anything at all that is "cheaper" "easier" "faster", the ROI/Value would be there and some would most likely jump on those if that option is available...
     
  5. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I believe Azteca degrees are propio doctorate degrees but they are already being refused by foreign evaluators. Azteca is a non ranked school that has low credibility compared to UCM but there are already some evaluators that mentioned that they would refuse propio degrees from private universities. The price is attractive but the reality is that you are getting an non official degree, a bit better than azteca but also not official.
     
  6. datby98

    datby98 Active Member

    How about the DBA at EMAS comparing to this one?
     
  7. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I'm I reading this correctly? A third party (UniAthena) conducts the course and UCM awards the degree? I've been barely paying attention to all of this "propio" stuff, but it sounds like degrees that are awarded outside the recognized scope of the university. How does one know that this degree is that? By its relationship to Athena? Because I would think that would not be enough to make that determination.

    For years we talked about UNEM--Empresarial University in Costa Rica awarded doctorates done in English and (apparently) outside the scope of the university's recognized degree-granting authority. In fact, it appeared the unversity--a recognized school in Costa Rica--was allowing some guy in the U.S. to run a degree-granting operation under their name. That sounded like a "propio" arrangement, even though we didn't use that term.

    How does anyone know if this DBA would be "proprio"?
     
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  8. smartdegree

    smartdegree Active Member

    If you look at the sample certificate on the athena website, the degree itself is a titulo propio (it says so on the top). Also, an official degree would be issued by the government of Spain, not the university alone.

    This shows some samples of what is or is not a propio based on the document wording:
    https://acei-global.blog/2015/05/28/spain-understanding-and-evaluating-the-titulo-propio/
     
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  9. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

    It does look like UniAthena is an online education provider partnering with a few colleges to offer degrees (approved by those Universities) online. One of the others they seem to have a few degrees for is Guglielmo Marconi University in Italy. I wonder if the sample certificate is accurate to this specific degree. The samples from the Guglielmo Marconi University MBA did not indicate anything like that, but the system may be different in Italy. (?)
     
  10. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    What good are these?

    Remember, you go to a university to get an education and a degree. It seems like this kind of thing comes up a little short in the degree part. It doesn't meet what we would consider "equivalent to accredited," and I question the ethics of using such a title. The reason: it leaves an impression with people that is not true. This is the same as lying.

    In the U.S., accredited universities are prohibited by their accrediting agencies from awarding degrees that the accreditor has not approved. Also, they're licensed to operate by state governments who, typically, employ similar restrictions.

    (These questions and comments aren't pointed at you, but offered up in general.)
     
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  11. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Yes, it is like UNEM's operation but to be fair, UK and Australian Universities also conduct overseas operations through foreign companies that deliver the course. Propio degrees are legal in Spain, the University is legally entitled to offer the propio DBA but the use of this degree is limited.

    The question here is the use of this degree, it can be seen as continuing education and personal development but it cannot be used for a faculty or research position. However, people are getting Azteca, UNEM and other similar degrees so there is a market for these qualifications.
     
  12. Boya

    Boya New Member

    Non-state accredited doctorate degrees are more common in France. The PhD from Emlyon is, for example, not a national degree but only from the university and so, in my opinion, comparable to a propio in Spain. After graduation you are then not allowed to apply for research positions at French public universities but at the private Grande Ecoles there seem to be quite some professors with these university degrees. Although they all studied at Grande Ecoles, that have AACSB accreditations and are highly ranked and not at Azteca or PCIE.
     
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Note that I didn't question that part of it. Whether the school does the instruction themselves or they have someone else doing it, as long as its done under their auspices there should be no problem.

    I'm talking about the degree, not the work to earn it. It sounds like this stuff is legal, but that doesn't make it legitimate. In fact, I'll go one further and say it's unethical. Students may not make these distinctions. As I said, this kind of thing isn't done in the U.S., so students here might get fooled into pursuing a "degree" that isn't a degree.

    If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, you can call it an eagle....but it's still a duck.

    As for the market, I can't buy that because of the imbalance of information. Consumers may not be able to make these distinctions and, thus, are buying one thing and getting something else entirely. I'm not an attorney, but there is a concept called a warranty of merchantability. That is, the thing you sell has to be that thing. If you sell a car that didn't have an engine without making it clear you were selling an engineless-car, you're ripping off the buyer who assumes they're buying a car, and cars come with engines.

    These diplomas might be coming from a university, and they might have a similar title to regular degrees, but they're not degrees. They're just made out to be. This is, simply put, a scam.
     
  14. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    We're all free to have a perspective on these things, but with foreign programs I think it's best to let foreign credential evaluators determine legitimacy based on the parameters and standards they've refined over generations of encountering and evaluating various programs from all over the world.

    I have no specific opinion on the program being discussed in this thread, I haven't looked into it enough to form one yet, but for propio programs that have already been deemed legitimate by respected foreign credential evaluators, we can be sure that they are legitimate programs that deliver legitimate degrees even if the way they're delivered differs from the norm we're accustomed to in the United States.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2021
  15. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Many of the existing propio programs are degrees, as defined under the laws of the nation in question (Spain, Mexico, Portugal, France, Italy, etc)

    The UCAM Doctorate is a little iffy because I recall reading something about how the Organic Law of Universities doesn't permit anyone to issue a Doctorado without government oversight and official MEC involvement, which is why I've stayed away from that so far.
     
  16. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    It's not about how they're delivered. It's about how they are or are not recognized.
     
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  17. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Of course, which is why I brought up the importance of the foreign credential evaluation as one way of determining that. But I was referring to the arrangement of these types of programs and the way the degrees are awarded.
     
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    John Bear used to kick around a concept--not his, but useful--called 'GAAP'--Generally Accepted Accreditation Principles. (Yes, a take on accounting's GAAP.) IIRC, the source was from AACRAO.

    Anyway, the basic idea was that registrations officials tended to accept degrees from schools whose recognition met one of the six source criteria for GAAP. Regional accreditation, being listed in the International Handbook of Universities, etc. This wasn't that big of a deal, but with increased immigration of students coming to the U.S. to attend grad schools, and the increased availability of foreign degrees delivered via DL to Americans has made this a much bigger issue. (Along the way, we've seen the emergence of foreign credential advisors and the acceptance of such evaluations. More on that in a sec.)

    All along the way, it was institutional recognition that was at issue. No one was talking about recognized institutions awarding degrees beyond their recognized scope. (As I said in an earlier post, this kind of thing isn't done here in the U.S.) If the school met GAAP, it was expected that the degrees it issued would be acceptable to admissions officials and registrars of U.S. schools. GAAP wasn't universal, it wasn't perfect, and it wasn't really talked about as a thing. But, as it turned out, admissions officials and registrars tended to follow those guidelines, even if they'd never heard of GAAP. (It was likely they had not.)

    (Before the emergence of foreign credential advisors--and a trade group organized around them--employers were even worse off. The few who were even interested in checking on the legitimacy of someone's foreign degrees had almost nothing to go on--they didn't have anywhere near the registrars' capabilities and resources to do the job.)

    When DL from foreign schools first started taking off--right before the emergence of the World Wide Web in the late 1990s--we saw a little school in Costa Rica emerge. Initially termed the University of San Jose (Costa Rica's capital and its location), it soon changed names to Empresarial University. It was a small, residential school offering undergraduate degrees and one master's (in administration). Then emerged a set of programs through the PhD--and conducted in English. Where did these come from? Well, you can research the subject on this board, but the basic idea is that Empresarial licensed a U.S. operator to conduct these programs and award Empresarial degrees. But what we couldn't figure out was how, since the doctorates being awarded were not within the scope of Empresarial's accreditation in Costa Rica. This was kicked around for years. But it's very clear now that Costa Rica really didn't care what Empresarial did outside that country. The first known example of a propio degree.

    (Another noted example was the Monterrey Institute for Graduate Studies, or MIGS. Same setup, different school, this one in Monterrey, Mexico. I was involved with trying to get it off the ground, and I was a key player in bringing it down with Florida officials. There is a set of threads on this subject that remain on this board to this day, despite no one contributing them for many years. It's all there, though, if you're willing to slog through it all.)

    Now, we're finding that quite a few schools are doing this--awarding degrees beyond their official and recognized scope. It's hard to tell what is and what is not legitimately awarded. It looks like foreign credential advisors will have their hands full with the subject. But what concerns me is the exact same thing that concerns me about diploma mills: people are buying and using unreal degrees without others understand their ersatz nature.
     
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  19. smartdegree

    smartdegree Active Member

    Good points Rich. I've been on degreeinfo since the early days (using different account names in the early 2000's LOL) and John Bear's ideas and your inputs have definitely influenced the way I view degrees. I highly respect both of you for the great conversations through the years.

    The difference between titulo propios and your run-of-the-mill (pun intended) diploma mill is that titulo propios are also granted by elite universities. It's not just unknown, pop-up for-profits that are doing this in Spain but highly regarded institutions.

    Case in point --- Complutense University of Madrid, arguably one of the greatest universities in the Spanish-speaking world, offers titulo propio masters for a really good price of 4,350 euros.
    https://www.masterdatascienceucm.com/en/data-science-masters-degree/

    Complutense has exchange programs with almost all of the Ivy League schools and it even has a special arrangement with Harvard. Its alumni list rivals any Ivy as well. It can be argued that Complutense's titulo propio programs are actually a lot more rigorous than a lot of regionally accredited for-profit schools in the US. The problem is that it also offers regular "official" masters. They therefore have 2 tiers of degrees. And it's hard to discriminate between those degree holders because those degrees come from the same school and the school probably treats them as equally alumni.

    Biggest problem is that this headache is the Spanish government's fault. It was their idea to have this 2-tier approach. And it probably is a benefit to their country because it increases foreign enrolment and revenue $$$$. It also benefits the students who now have more choices in Spain - if they don't get into the elite "official" program, they can always enter the propio program. I don't think Spain gives a f*** about how their degrees are viewed in the US as long as the $$$ keep coming in.
     
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  20. manuel

    manuel Member

    All Spanish universities have "titulos propios" which is seen in Spain as continuing education or a final degree if you don't want to continue your studies. In fact, I have seen a lot of them locating titulos propios in "Educacion continua". Overall, they are not fake degrees and have the same number of credits and rugosity as official degrees. Those degrees are legal, authorized, and backed by the universities and their prestige. I see titulos propios as a way for the university to provide degrees where the government hasn't caught up yet. Also, the main difference between propios and officials is that you don't pursue a doctoral degree after finishing the propio (most people don't need or want to continue their studies anyway).

    A good example is this Master in Big Data Architecture provided by the Universidad Catolica de Avila, it is a propio degree provided by a great faculty. In fact, Luis Joyanes Aguilar is considered one of the great authors in Computer Science in the Spanish language (I learned how to program with one of his books in 1996/97). So, it is not fair to see it as a fake degree. I see it more like a Professional Master's that prepares students with technical tools used in the real world and not to concentrate on research.

    I don't think that the government's agenda was to get enrollment from other countries because the titulos propios have always been there. The difference today is that the "world is flat" and you can access them from around the world. No need to live in Spain anymore.

    *Still, I don't know why a person would like to pursue a propio degree on the Doctoral level.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2021
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