Azteca University - International - Foreign Credential Evaluation

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Garp, Jul 27, 2022.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    "Um... that's nice, not really my kind of thing - but I'm glad you enjoy it, Sr. Batista! I think the party's pretty well over ... my driver is here. Maybe a raincheck...we'll see. Buenas noches, Fulgencio."
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  2. Alpine

    Alpine Active Member

    Perhaps a stupid question, but any comments on the value or utility of an Azteca degree being evaluated as "RA equivalent" versus holding a degree from a nationally accredited school recognized by the USDE? One would think a US employer would consider the US degree with greater favor than a foreign evaluated credential having an "equivalent" measurement from a NACES member organization? Not that foreign degrees are better or worse than a US degree, it is the perception from a future employer that the degree is, "Made in Mexico." or another country.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  3. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Depends what you're trying to do with it. If you need RA equivalency - as you still do at some schools and for some jobs, despite pronouncements to the contrary from DOE - Azteca RA equivalent HAS to be your choice, of the two. Better, of course would be a Big 6-accredited American degree, but that wasn't what was being asked. If you're in US and a non-RA degree will work for you - go with the US degree all the way.

    My take: Unless you're going to work /live in Mexico, why Azteca at all. - why not a US RA degree. Big 3, UMPI, ASU, others who make them low-cost. Buy local. It pays. Unless you're after some degree they just don't make, this side of the border -and right now, I can't think what that could be.
     
    Alpine likes this.
  4. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    As Johann said, may depend. The guy whose evaluation is above is an engineer. For state engineering boards or CPA Boards which the Evaluator he used deals with, the "equivalent of RA" evaluation by an approved Evaluator may be more valuable than Nationally Accredited and US based.

    Same thing for State Teacher Certification Boards which that Evaluator (Foreign Credentials Evaluation Service) deals with. His "equivalent of RA" may mean certification, may mean pay increases and promotion opportunities because of the PhD or EdD.
     
    Alpine likes this.
  5. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Not a stupid question. You actually have a valid point. I received no interviews when I applied for faculty positions using my Indian MBA (RA equivalent per ECE). Once I had 18 credits in my master's in CJ at Lamar, I received CJ interview requests (a few). However, once I had my master's, I had more interviews. Maybe because I didn't have significant business experience, I didn't get any interviews for business faculty positions. However, I had over 5 years of law enforcement experience, and perhaps that's why I had interviews for the CJ position. Maybe they didn't value my Indian MBA compared to an AACSB or RA MBA. Still, I had no issues getting CJ positions with my B.S. in CJ from an NA school. The only value I had from my MBA was when I was a business & CJ teacher for 3 years. My evaluation expired, and I have no plans to re-evaluate it.
     
    Alpine likes this.
  6. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Alpine, you can see by the two responses that it probably significantly depends what you are trying to do with the degree. So, someone embarking on the degree better know and understand.

    I know someone that went with an unaccredited degree because they felt that would be better perceived than a non prestigious foreign degree.
     
    Alpine likes this.
  7. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    This student's degree is a Doctor of Science Propio. I can tell you all that the evaluation that Garp gave is the same student that sent his credentials to two other evaluators. One of them was IEE which is a NACES evaluator and the other one was Validential. Validential gave the same full recognition of PhD from a regionally accredited institution while IEE gave the evaluation of Post Doctoral Program from a regionally accredited institution / non-accredited program. An explanation was given that the program is non-accredited in the US due to the lack of RVOE. This essentially leaves a gray area from IEE's evaluation as some would accept it because it comes from an accredited school while others may outright reject it because the program is not recognized.
     
  8. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    The evaluator wrote it in those exact words?
     
  9. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    Yes in those exact words. It looks really funny but I can see the reasoning behind it! I still have that evaluation if any of you all want to see it. I promised the dean that I wouldn't share it but the way I am being treated by him and not receiving any responses concerning my dissertation may lead me to break that promise. I can always just mark the student's name out but I can tell by the subject and dissertation title that it is the same student.
     
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  10. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Interesting. Yeah, I guess I can see it, too. I take it as meaning too convey that the school is accredited but that specific program is not registered. But it's interesting that such an arrangement doesn't always play out that way with an evaluation, as we've seen programs unaccredited in one country get U.S. RA equivalent status through one of our evaluation agencies. I suspect when this happens there could be more known behind the scenes about certain programs than what's known to us publicly.

    I'm really sorry they're putting you through this. That's totally unprofessional. I think some may look at it as a knock on foreign programs, but I can tell you that I've had some real doozies much like yours with American schools in the past, to the point that the only way I could get a response was to file a complaint with a school's accreditor. Then magically, they would start communicating, smh. In one of my struggles, it reached a point where I had to file a complaint every time I needed a response for anything. That should never happen with any institution you're paying your money to and certainly not when you're being courteous, tactful, and patient in all of your communications. I don't know why people just decide to be crummy like that, but they sometimes do.

    If you haven't already, maybe you can talk to someone else? Maybe the Rector? If not, perhaps the RVOE has a complaint process.
     
  11. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Oops, I meant Ministry of Public Education. I forgot that RVOE is a system of recognition and not an entity.
     
  12. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    That's actually a great question. I posted a similar thought about two years ago, joking that one could get a U.S. degree earned on U.S. soil rejected by a school but go get a foreign degree for dirt cheap,--that may not even be accredited in its own country--get an RA equivalent evaluation, and get accepted by the same school, lol.

    Azteca may be too small a subject to compare to the whole of the NA landscape, however. Then you have to take into account the local factor where an NA school may have a strong presence in one area and in a specific field (think healthcare or technology) whereas the foreign program wouldn't. Then the name of the foreign school can unfortunately play a factor, because if you show up with a name that sounds very foreign some employers may automatically pass, as ignorant as that is, but it's a reality. After all, they pass on people from American schools all the time for all sorts of personal biases and misconceptions, so no surprise that it would extend to foreign programs.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2022
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Before foreign credential evaluation got to be big--and NACES was formed--most evaluations were about the school, not the program. If the school was considered part of its national university structure, that was usually good enough. We used to talk about GAAP--"Generally Accepted Accreditation Principles" (lifted from accounting's GAAP, natch). Several sources were used to verify the status of a university. AACRAO used to provide a service, and they tended to follow these guidelines (they were the source of them). A school was considered to meet GAAP criteria--and, thus, be considered comparable to being accredited--if it was listed in one of these:
    • Accredited by an agency recognized by CHEA
    • Accredited by an agency recognized by the US DoE
    • Recognized by its national education agency
    • Schools listed in one or more of these publications:
      • International Handbook of Universities
      • Commonwealth Universities Yearbook
      • World Education Series
      • NOOSR in Australia
    (Bears' Guide--yes, that apostrophe is correct--13th ed., p. 42)

    Thus, degrees earned from a proprio situation or one where the degree-granting authority is being rented by a third party would not be distinguished from those the recognized school was authorized to award by its controlling agency. We might thank (?) both the rise of NACES and the internet for the change. Or confusion. Your call.
     
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  14. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Actually, the Azteca degree might have more value outside Mexico that in Mexico because its PhD has no RVOE. I don't think these degrees are marketed in Mexico. They might be recognized in the US as credits that you could transfer to a degree like Excelsior or alike.
     
  15. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    We’ve discussed UNIVERSIDAD Isabel I/ENEB on this forum and the sister forum quite a bit and while IEE gave me an unofficial evaluation of ENEB degrees being evaluated for graduate credit with a possible graduate certificate equivalent, they will likely give an official evaluation very similar to Azteca.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2022
  16. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    I would agree. Marketed to North America (excluding Mexico) and heavily in Asia (India, Middle East).
     
  17. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Linkedin shows about 2600 people that mention Universidad Azteca, in the US only 28 came up. It does not seem to me like this school is so popular, others like UNEM or UCN also appear in small quantities. It looks like the only circles where these degrees are discussed are here.
    Most of the partners of Azteca are in Africa and Asia, it makes sense as these degrees are cheap in comparison with European and American options.
     
  18. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    It does? I was unaware of that. Want to set yourself up as an "evaluator?" All you have to do is make it look good. Pay $300 for an Organizational Membership in The Association for International Credential Evaluation Professionals. Get a website. That's it. Validential has been known to give US equivalency for degrees of private Euro schools (e.g. European International University) that, though legal, do not have State recognition of their degrees in their own country. My take: That's not right.

    Full thread on Validential in the other forum.

    Setting up as an unrecognized "evaluator" seems to be easier (i.e. attracts less undesired attention) in many jurisdictions than setting up an unrecognized "University" or an unrecognized "accreditor." A new(ish) twist.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2022
  19. tadj

    tadj Well-Known Member

    Yes, I've recently commented on the things that I found odd concerning the published Validential evaluations, specifically the Canadian equivalency reports (if you look at their FAQ section, you will see that Validential also does Canadian standard evaluations) and the specific EIU accreditation judgement. You can see these posts on the sister forum. I post under 'openair.'
     
  20. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    Validential is a good company name for this evaluation company as it seems to live up to validating programs that have some recognition but not full recognition. While NACES and AICE evaluators will nitpick and give evaluations with penalized areas rather it be docking from the degree or accreditation, Validential follows a model similar to schools offering US state-authorized degrees and foreign propio degrees in an inter-university relationship with universities that will award official degrees, ie, Azteca/UCN based on work completed at those middle of the road recognized programs or schools. It works best for those who are or seek to be employed outside of academic fields. I wouldn't put Validential in the box of California FCE but in many ways they serve similar purposes.
     

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