English-language Título Propio Degrees - Master Thread

Agreed. I think a lot of those questions have been answered. However, there is still room for conversation, I think, in the "how does an individual 'use' this degree?"

That's always a real possibility. Though I think the issue is generally not a prohibition of international learning but of a foreign degree that doesn't seem to match the applicant.

"Oh, so I see you have a degree from India. Do you speak Hindi?"
"Nope."
"How long were you in India?"
"Never been."

And, frankly, where the applicant does not appear to be Indian (though this shouldn't really be considered during an interview) it's going to raise a question as to whether this degree was legitimately obtained and if the school itself is legitimate. There are ethnocentric managers who won't care even if it is impeccable. I recall a hiring manager at a previous employer refusing to consider an American applicant (high school and undergrad were in the US, grad degree in CS from a prominent Scandinavian university) because "If he's so smart, why couldn't he get into a school in this country?" It was ridiculous. It happens even if it shouldn't.

But let's be real...

If you encounter a doctor who is likely Mexican and who has a Mexican medical degree then you're going to view them and their education differently than if you encounter a person name Seamus O'Reilly, who doesn't speak a lick of Spanish, and who claims to have a medical degree from Mexico.

Honestly, I don't think this is really an issue these days. For some jobs and some employers? Sure. For everyone? There are far too many employers out there for them to insist that your degree come from a school they heard of. In some specialized fields where the programmatic ranking REALLY matters (like engineering) then it could come up. Broadly across all industries? Not really.

To be clear, I'm not saying the issue is having a foreign degree on your resume. I'm saying the issue is specifically with the titulo propio. There, an evaluation is unlikely to help you. Also, if am employer accuses you of degree fraud having your own evaluation is not likely to carry much weight. They may insist on another evaluator who may not be so favorable.

Again, everything I wrote was about the titulo propio and not about foreign degrees in general. The straw man you built was absolutely beautiful but it was a straw man nonetheless.

 

Absolutely agree there.

I had some creative and ridiculous rejections when I was in the 9-5 world, more than I'd care to admit, lol. But reading that one makes me go "ouch". Yeah, that's bad.

LOL! I've had that happen a few times where I went to a private practice for care, the degrees were visible, the degrees where foreign, and the person was certainly not foreign. I just assume they took the foreign route because of costs or because they just couldn't get into a domestic school for one reason or another. For me personally, over time just looking into and learning what it takes to get licensed in the United States to be a Doctor, it put me at ease because it made me understand that there are a reasonable number of safeguards in place to ensure that the person is properly qualified to perform the job. But yeah, not everyone is going to be aware of that, and I think we've all heard stories of people yelling that they didn't want to see a Doctor from this or that part of the world or of this or that race/culture. It's unfortunate, but it's real.

I agree with that especially in an overall view. I meant that more in comparison to foreign degrees that generally wouldn't have any name recognition here in the States. If I show up with a foreign degree from Universidad Súper Especial de Santo Domingo, even if it were prestigious in its country of origin, that lack of familiarity here is going to make it meaningless to most people. I think the name matters sometimes too, like if it's too foreign that might put people off. I know some combat this by using an English translation of a school's name, and over the past few years I've been surprised to read some foreign schools actually encourage that, so my guess is that they're aware of the issue too.

Right. I wasn't saying that you have an issue with it, I was just saying that I don't have an issue with it.

I think some of what we bring up about this is centered on the premise that the degree hasn't disqualified the applicant, so he/she reaches the interview phase and then reaches the background/verification phase. So at least at that point, the person has a better opportunity. But if all things are equal, and it comes down to a candidate with a domestic degree and a candidate with a foreign degree (and it's not from a well-known foreign school), the domestic degree holder is probably going to win. Even when these biases aren't intentional--assuming bias is the reason in the scenario I described--those outcomes happen.

I didn't consider that. Hahahaha, well, if they did that my resignation letter would be on their desk so fast and hot that it'd be practically on fire.

LOL! I wasn't speaking on foreign degrees in general because I thought you had any issue with them. I was just speaking on my personal position regarding them as it was adjacently topical. No straw man constructed

 

I thought that you would want to see the profile below if you wanted to know how many English propio degrees are out there. The profile below has the following number of propio degrees (very impressive).

4 propio doctorates
8 religious based doctorates
1 unaccredited doctorate
12 propio masters degrees
1 Alternative medicine doctorate

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tankwanhong/details/education/

I am not sure if anyone in this board collected as many propio degrees but I think it is safe to say that he is the propio degree king. He also has many unaccredited and accredited degrees, I am sure people can use his profile to find schools offering propio degrees in English.

 

11,000 word thesis. For a PhD. In Metaphysics. In case you think that's a typo, the Masters thesis was 8200.

 

Also that guy's Twitter has 177,000 followers but his tweets get around 100 views each. I assume he bought some followers.

 

Wow, he completed every Master's program offered to English speaking students on scholarship from ENEB except the Team MBA one which is not offered with the scholarship.

 

Metaphysics Doctorate, huh? Not impressed.
https://tankwanhong.com/page/about-us.html

 

Is the Metaphysics one of those California Unaccredited thingies? We have a member who got a Bachelor's Master's and Doctorate in Metaphysics from California -- in 6 months. The three degrees usually take a year - but not for him...

I've read some of those schools' doctoral disses. You don't need a PhD to see what they are...
Their gimmick is - tuition is pretty low - and just about anyone can earn the degrees. But you have to pay a fee every year or the degrees are no longer valid. "Rent-a-degree."

 

It is a religious based degree. The rental comes from the fact that you need to pay a membership fee to maintain the PhD. The idea of a religious degree is a qualification to minister in a religion, many organized religions just grant a certificate and not a degree. However, some institutions profit from this right and grant religious PhDs to people that use them for professional purposes and not ministerial purposes like psychologists. It is unlikely that this fellow is going to open a church and minister with these degrees, they are just used to boost a profile. As he is in Asia, to many local people he has an American PhD and this is what he sells. As Metaphysics is also a field of philosophy, to the average person he holds an American PhD in Philosophy (I'm not defending just explaining).

In California, there are also associations that rent degrees that are not religious based, professional associations are allowed to grant degrees but to maintain it, you need to pay a membership fee. For example, ICMA members can get a DBA from Calwest university https://www.calwest.org/.

 

Actually, this is not so bad considering that many of the religious degrees are just purchased or experience based.

These degrees are just profile boosters. They cannot be used to teach at the university level and do not qualified to work in a professional field, they are just boosters so people can call you legally Dr. and can put PhD in your CV.

As this fellow is a trainer, propio and unaccredited doctorates might work as all he needs is to impress prospect customers. He is not into university teaching so accredited doctorates are not needed for him. This can be an example where the propio doctorate might have some value.

 

I don't really follow this line of reasoning. They haven't met the typical standards required of the degrees they're claiming. Whether or not they're required for the jobs he's pursuing is secondary. He hasn't actually done the work to earn them.

 

He is presenting a PhD from the University of Metaphysics. The granting authority is the one that decides if the person deserves the degree or not based on their own criteria. The school is legally established in California to grant religious based degrees. The degree does not need to be accredited by an association recognized by the minister of education by law as it has a religious exemption.

If you were an employer, you have all the right to refuse his degree but he also has all the right to include it in his CV. He can legally claim that he has a PhD (under a religious exemption law) but most of the time this PhD will not be counted for jobs that require one.

You might not like it, this is your right. However, the person holding the PhD has the right to use it.

I personally wouldn't use this degree in a professional CV. A lot people will target you and ridicule you because of this (yours and others members reaction can be a proof of this). I would only use it if I were to minister in a church.

 

That's not necessarily so. Even a legal degree can be the basis for illegal behavior. The degree confers and infers a certain level of preparedness. Running around your church (or whatever), calling yourself "Doctor" is probably fine with this kind of thing. But if you were, say, a consultant, and someone relied on your expertise with disastrous results, I could see where your claim to a PhD, while legal, might be actionable. The burden would be on the degree-holder, not the person who relied upon him/her.

 

This discussion shows what can happen when people to get their highest level degrees (In this individual’s case, a bunch of doctorates) from legal-only/unaccredited/questionable institutions. All their other significant educational accomplishments and milestones at Master’s and Bachelor’s level are now overshadowed by these culminating crap degrees. People’s entire focus shifts to their highest level degree awards, as we can observe in our own discussion. The fact that thus guy apparently earned three Master’s degrees from rock solid places (Edinburgh Napier University, Grenoble École de Management, Monash University plus all the legit Spanish Master propios from Universidad Isabel I) doesn’t appear to matter in such cases. This is exactly what I’ve been referring to when I once said that it’s your highest level degree accomplishments that get all the attention. We’ve seen this time and time again with newspaper revelations of fake PhDs. If he only stopped at the Master’s level, he would be seen as a highly accomplished individual. But now, we’re dealing with the “overshadowing” and “accomplishment overselling” effect and it leaves a bad taste.

 

The DBA from unaccredited Calwest U: Yes - all Calwest degrees only available to ICMA members - and you can easily join ICMA via the Calwest website. I suppose that's legal (somewhere?) and it's certainly easy!

Join today! Just pay! Get your DBA!

 

This discussion has degenerated from "degrees propio" to "degrees TRASH." Seems to be a pattern, around here, at times.

 

Of course not. If I thought that, I'd have said so. Nobody can read my evil mind - not worth trying.

 

The propio degree has been the most fascinating topic to me since joining this forum more than seven years ago. The ambiguity and cost of these programs is what set me on a path to try one, namely Azteca/UCN, for a life-long learning endeavor. However, seeing people list so many of them on their professional profiles does make them look like diploma mills though. However, there are many credential evaluators giving these programs positive results. For life-long learning, this is great. However, for solid credentials, it is best to go the local and 100% accredited route.

 

Once you go through all the required project work for the initial Universidad Isabel I/ENEB degree, it is so much easier to add the other degrees. Sometimes, it is just a matter of a tiny number of additional courses. I've decided to take two of these degrees (MBA and MHRM) and I feel like it's more than enough. I am a happy graduate, but I don't need 10 degrees coming from the same place.