Central University of Nicaragua Degree Scheme

I have heard similar stories about University of Phoenix. These have ranged from hiring people blackballing them to being told by a University they would take no credits at the undergraduate level much less accept the degree into their graduate programs. It has damaged it's brand (it is a check the box degree).

Schools like Andersonville that are exempt are in another category. Denominational and related entities have their own set of criteria. If they assess Andersonville as rigorous enough to qualify and of the correct theological understanding, it may be more suitable in certain circles than a liberal well accredited seminary because it is fundamentalist and dispensational. Don't try applying with a PhD from Georgetown or Catholic University of America.

 

I don't believe it is because of the for-profit status of the school.

UoP gets what I call the "McDonalds Treatment." Because they were the largest, they became the archetype for the for-profit sector. On a list of for-profit schools the average person can name, I'm guessing UoP is the only name on it.

Burger King is guilty of anything and everything McDonalds can be blamed for, but they don't get 1% of the heat. Same with UoP.

Ignored are the innovations UoP brought or adopted, including team-based assignments (an essential skill in any career), compressed course schedules, standardized, objective-based curricula, etc. If you do a UoP MBA, you've earned your MBA.

But as I've cautioned many times on this board, when you go to a university, you have an exchange of capital. You give your money and your effort. They give you an education and a degree. And it is on this last form of capital that UoP can fail students. There is a huge difference between fame and infamy, but at its height--and I was there full-time back then--I'm not so sure the school made that distinction.

Now, excuse me, but I've got to duck into Del Taco and do some homework for that AA from Strayer I've been putting off.....

 

¡Ay, Ay, Ay! ¡Buena suerte!

 

Del Taco, when the authenticity of Taco Bell just becomes too overwhelming.

 

But the Clinical Psychology program wasn't the one that was being discussed for licensing, at least not the posts my replies were building off of. Personally, I think the Clinical Psychology program would have big problems because it's being treated as a completion program which isn't normal for that discipline in the United States, and the title of "Clinical Psychologist" tends to carry some different requirements for licensing in a number of states which I don't think a completion program would work with in a lot of them, but I can't see many Americans enrolling in that, I think most would be going for the regular PhD program in Psychology.

It is ridiculous, it's also the reality of the position the system puts us in the United States with this field, a game of possibilities and less certainties, and another reason why we have the crisis we have now with this. Oh, we rely on the schools to be on top of that information and to make sure students know before signing up as we should, and for the states to be monitoring it, but they make mistakes, or just outright don't give a damn enough to nail it down entirely (more on that later).

To the system's credit, some states have recognized this problem and have attempted to provide ways for people to bridge to meet the requirements if something goes wrong, even working on reciprocity agreements between states. But by the time those got into play many people either found another avenue or left the field for other jobs and never came back. Even worse is that these things don't always work out as well as advertised. So if the degree is from a school in California or a school in Cochabamba, you can never be 100% sure that it's going to qualify exactly how it's written by the time you finish, changes happen, surprises happen, so all you can do is speak in possibilities based on generalized standards and work from there.

There is a program in New York that just had a little issue with this (the CASAC Online program in NYC). People finished, and came up hours short, applications rejected (an acquaintance of mine has a daughter who got caught up in that). And the wild part is that this is a program backed by and registered with the state. It's not something that happens constantly, but when it does happen it hurts the field and the would-be therapists, and is a strain on the system that taxpayers support because then things have to be moved around to get everyone into compliance and time is money. They worked it out eventually, but even so, it has to make the next crop of potentials wary about jumping in and it's not like we can afford that problem right now anywhere in the country.

 

Nyet.

It's also about money, and when your money is already stretched as far as it can go to keep your lights going, your roof over your family's head, and food on the table, becoming a licensed anything isn't going to be high on that list. So many people are struggling to make ends meet that the cost is simply out of reach for most, and it's not like you can get student loans for supervision costs so even if you got around the tuition hurdle you'd still have to deal with that boulder. You might be able to get lucky and land a job with a facility and not have to worry about that, but they're highly competitive and they normally look for younger blood. Most of the people here are older and would be changing careers to do it at this point in their lives.

 

Like I said, priorities.

 

If that wasn't bad enough, it just got worse. On 9/12, out of nowhere, New York State changed the CASAC education rules. Now, only 50% can be learned online, the other 50% must be either ground-based, or if online it must be through a Webex-style system, so any school offering 100% online programs has to modify immediately. This has devastated those schools and they're scrambling. I've been on the phone with two to find out what they're doing and both have decided to suspend sections 2 & 3 from online availability indefinitely! At the time when I found out, there wasn't even any communication from NYS regarding what to do with students already deep into their programs. Ideally, you'd hope everyone in that situation just gets grandfathered in, but it's New York and you just never know what kind of bull they're going to come up with to make things harder for people. So a scenario could happen again like the one you referenced where people finish, apply for the credential, and get rejected.

Why New York State feels the need to make everything so difficult all the time is just beyond me, and this is one of those things that just couldn't afford to be made more difficult being in a huge drug crisis and all, smh.

 

New York State strikes again. What a disaster. A whole new crop of people are getting screwed, some already, some don't even know it yet.

NYS OASAS is just bumbling at this point. They put out a new scope of practice document that includes a whole section on the new CASAC-P designation, but if you ask questions about it all they'll tell you is that it isn't available yet. They put out information for public consumption on a scope of practice document ffs, but then don't want to discuss it. How does that even make sense? Either they've thought it through and are ready to talk about it or they haven't, and if they haven't they shouldn't put that out for the entire public to see as it just wastes everyone's time.

 

Just went credential evaluation shopping asking about blacklisted schools and programs.

Contacted Foundation of International Services (http://www.fis-web.com/), Inc. Here was their reply....

Dear Carlton,

Thank you for your inquiry. Note that there are no recognized doctoral programs offered in Nicaragua so FIS would not evaluate your PhD in Education from UCN. We will equate your Spanish Master/Titulo Propio to completion of continuing education since it is not a Titulo Universitario oficial we cannot reach a US master’s degree equivalency.

 

It would be nice to get a clarification as to the meaning of this statement: "There are no recognized doctoral programs offered in Nicaragua." Recognized in what sense? The new law?

 

WES published a similar statement, there is no recognition of any PhD from Nicaragua mainly because there are none recognized in this country.
The Propio statement is accurate, you can get credit for the ECTS credits as continuing education but not as a masters degree.

 

You might want to try Azteca, as you will end with two degrees, maybe Azteca has a better chance of recognition.

As for the Masters degree, you can try to transfer the credits to an official masters degree to resolve the matter.

 

Do you mean that only in the context of WES? Or is there something more widespread that you've found?

I expect WES to reject everything from UCN since they blacklisted them years ago. But I've seen a few times people with PhD's in Psychology from UCN teaching at a college or being recognized by some American health system/group with their PhD listed and mentioning UCN. That of course is different than an FCE, but there was an FCE done by IEE for a PhD from UCN (Dr. John Rogers shared his evaluation data with me here on the board) and that was evaluated as equivalent to a regionally accredited PhD.

 

I will contact IEE to verify rather or not they will accept UCN which I figured that they would if they evaluated Azteca as regionally accredited although non-accredited program for lack of RVOE for certain programs. I'm actually just shopping to see if I can find anything better than IEE. They were going to be my first choice anyway. The director of evaluations at FIS said that UCN programs were not recognized. I'm not sure where they got that from unless they are looking at the same list as WES to make that determination. I also wanted to see what their policies were for ENEB's Masters degrees, propio in general and they have a similar policy to AICE and IEE. They are as old as WES having been a NACES recognized member since 1987 so that would explain their policies.

 

I saw once a presentation from WES explaining that Nicaragua does not have Doctoral programs recognized in the country. Each evaluation agency use their own criteria but I would expect that slowly they will all converge into one decision and this seems to be no recognition.
By the way, Open International University in Sri Lanka is now affiliated with Azteca (https://oiucm.net/). I am not sure if this is positive or negative.
If I were doing this PhD, I would try to complete as soon as possible and get it recognized by whoever is left from NACES list before it is too late.

 

LOL, you know, it's kinda sad that it has to be thought of that way, but it is reality. And course people will look at that as only a UCN problem but it really isn't. Other schools from foreign locations face the same kind of thing. UCN doesn't help itself with some of its associations, but in my mind, it would just make sense for evaluators block the murky associations and deal only with what comes from the parent school. To me, that's most fair, but I see that evaluation agencies aren't all that concerned with fairness.

 

FIS does not evaluate Azteca either so there is that. The director gave me a fast reply when I asked. I love that this particular company was atleast straight forward with me and I still have positive news to report for this FCE for Master Titulo Propio, ie ENEB/U1 degrees.

 

I wonder whether you could get a positive Foreign Credential Evaluation for an Azteca EdD because even without the RVOE (due to not being a resident) they are approved to offer the EdD (under their equivalent of accreditation). Of course would not apply to an Azteca PhD.