Central University of Nicaragua Degree Scheme

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Rich Douglas, Nov 21, 2021.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Forgot to mention the price. It's their highest award - somewhere around $100 to $120 I think. Match THAT, "Costaragua!" :p
     
  2. Johann766

    Johann766 Active Member

    I always thought that UNEM is state recognized for some of their programs and the rest would be propio.

    Wikipedia sounds different however, not sure what's true now:

    It is approved by the Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada, the national council of higher education of Costa Rica,[1] to award undergraduate degrees in accounting and business administration, and master's degrees in business administration.[2]

    The degree programs offered by UNEM are not among those accredited by the Sistema Nacional de Acreditación de la Educación Superior (SINAES), the national accreditation agency of Costa Rica.[3]
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    To further the historical point:

    California used to operate a 3-teir recognition system for higher education. They were:
    • Authorized. This was the basic legal minimum to operate a university in the state. One simply had to file affidavits attesting to 13 areas of operation, and declare $50K in assets dedicated to the university's operation. No evaluation, no sweat. File it, pay the fee, and BOOM! You're a university. Needless to say, this spawned a great deal of innovation, and a tremendous amount of flim-flammary, with schools touting their "California Authorized" status and stating how accreditation was a private, voluntary process, blah blah blah. Three types of schools (IMHO) emerged from this process. There were several that have gone on to becoming accredited. There were many that operated under these loose rules but never became accredited. Then there were flagrant diploma mills. All of them quite legal.
    • Approved. The state would evaluate and approve individual programs at Authorized schools. This was, metaphorically, like programmatic accreditation, but certainly didn't rise to that level. Thus, an unaccredited school was institutionally Authorized, but may have one or more programs in the Approved status. There was a law on the books for awhile that equated Approval with Accredited, but no one took that seriously. But something that WAS taken seriously was getting Approved to operate master's programs in counseling that would qualify you to become a marriage/family/child counselor. A LOT of people were licensed like that. Note: California Coast University, now accredited by DEAC, was the first DL school in California to have ALL of its degree programs (Education, Engineering, Psychology, and Business, all through the doctorate) Approved.
    • Accredited. Schools accredited by a recognized agency were exempt from the other two sections of the law and did not have to go through the processes describe above.
    In order to combat the diploma mill (and crummy school) issues with the Authorized category, California eventually decided to get rid of that status. Instead, they thought, they would do institutional approval for all unaccredited schools in the state. This had several effects. First, it really did get rid of the worst of the worst. (I'm looking at you, University of Central California.) But not all of them. Second, the ability to do this got swamped and enforcement became shoddy and inconsistent. Third, a number of schools bifurcated their operations, running one version (usually with a few degrees in business being offered) Approved by California, with a mirror operation authorized in Hawaii (which was very lax at the time). In reality, both operations would be managed from California.

    It also caused some schools to "relocate" to other, less-demanding states. Kennedy-Western University was the most egregious example, moving its license to various states as the laws changed to deal with them, but never actually leaving California.

    And some schools closed. The true diploma mills were gone, but the state also took its ire out on at least one school--which it had already Approved--Columbia Pacific University. CPU struggled with the state for years before one of its operators retired and the other moved it and renamed it, before it too died.

    A few schools simply ignored the state and continue to operate without any apparent legal authority.

    Today, the remains--schools that didn't go out of business and didn't become accredited--are under siege by the state--which never did develop an effective Approval system. So, they're abandoning it, requiring all unaccredited schools in the state to get accredited. Some of these schools have chosen to shut down. Others are pursing mergers with accredited schools. Still others are trying to make headway with WASC or DEAC (or, for awhile, with ACICS). I predict most will not get through the accreditation process, mainly because (a) they don't have the gobs of money WASC expects and (b) they don't fit DEAC's cookie-cutter course-in-a-box philosophy.

    Nontraditional higher education in California used to be a fun, interesting, and sometimes less-than-wonderful landscape, where diploma mills (like California Christian University), "microversities" (like California Pacific University, niche schools (like Ryokan or WISR), degree-blasters (Kennedy-Western, Kensington, Golden State), not-quite there schools (Colombia Pacific), late bloomers (California Coast), and rocket ships (Fielding, Saybrook, CIIS) all swam in the same primordial educational swamp. It was a mess. I miss that.
     
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  4. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    What is true now has been true since the school opened: It was approved (by CONESUP - it is not a SINAES member) to teach two bachelor's and a master's - on ground, in Costa Rica. All the distance degrees are completely unauthorized back-door stuff. Always have been. Any 'propio' status is imaginary. It is what it is. Fifteen years of discussion in degree-forums has not altered it one bit.

    We don't need to go down this road again. Mea maxima culpa for my lame joke about Costa Rica.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2022
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  5. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    In fact, that quoted statement is at least that old.

    But I don't understand how UNEM is any different from any other propio degree. As I understand it, a propio degree is an unrecognized degree issued by an otherwise recognized institution. I think the off-shore UNEM degree-granting thing fits this, right? Or am I missing something?
     
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I think it's this way, Rich. Under CONESUP rules, ANY distance degrees from this school are forbidden. Including the three they're approved for on-ground. That's the key here. A school can't get around that by calling "propio."

    I'm not sure whether "propio" privilege extends to non-SINAES schools either. I'm looking it up. But the distance-ed prohibition is definitely a thing. No offshore. None means none.
     
  7. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    My understanding of propio degrees is that the national system says to a school, "Here. we approve these degrees. We don't care what else you do, though." Isn't that what Empresarial has been doing for decades? The only other alternative is that they've been in violation of whatever rules are in place for universities in Costa Rica--issuing degrees illegally. I always assumed CONESUP tolerated it and that it was legal. Hence, propio.
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Not quite dealing with the same thing, here. With "propio" the authorities don't care if you award degrees not specified, that haven't been individually vetted. But here, there's NO approval for ANY distance degrees, or so I read years ago, by someone who should know. Actually, I'm unable to find any mention in English or Spanish of "propio" or "own title" in regard to Costa Rica. The concept may not exist there. Not all Hispanic countries run higher-ed exactly like Spain - or Mexico, either. Still working on it.

    Come to think of it, this may be why Nicaraguan and Costa Rican schools like these "dual" thingies with Azteca and sometimes doubtful Swiss entities. They get to sign off on degrees they don't have permission to teach and make some money that way. Or they teach them to offshore students and the other school signs and makes the degree at least "legal." The schools make out like bandits on these cross-validation things. The buyers often don't.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2022
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Found the answer. Private Universities (e.g. UNEM) require CONESUP approval for each program - ergo, no propios. (In private Unis at least).

    Says so here: "Private institutions require approval from the Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada (CONESUP) before offering a programme."

    It's all in here: https://www.nuffic.nl/sites/default/files/2020-08/education-system-costa-rica.pdf

    ¡Caso cerrado! (Case closed!)
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2022
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Perhaps these unauthorized degrees should be termed "impropio" - or "highly impropio." :)
     
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  11. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    If the Costa Rican authorities don't tolerate such activity, it begs the question why they have tolerated it for a very long and public time. Because I believe Forrest Gump knows the way ("Stupid is as stupid does."), I have to conclude that, regardless of stated and written policy, this degree-granting activity IS tolerated. De facto propio, as it were.
     
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  12. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I agree - tolerated. to be sure. And likely, complaints, especially those from extranjeros, are steadfastly ignored. Norteamericanos - and others offshore - are there to be milked - and bilked. Tolerance by local authorities does not signify that there's any academic value to the unauthorized degrees. It just means the school gets away with awarding them. It's a gold-mine. Nothing else.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2022
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  13. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    "Your degree is highly impropio."
    "Perhaps - but it was so affraudable!" :)
     
  14. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    Considering that those degrees are unauthorized, I wonder are there any NACES evaluators that will evaluate them as regionally accredited though.
     
  15. Johann766

    Johann766 Active Member

    I disagree with your interpretation and I wouldn´t conclude that private institutions need a separate "approval" for each programme.
    Actually I´m not even sure wether this sentence has got anything to do with accreditation, "approval" sounds more like a general license to operate.

    Also I highly doubt that propio degrees are not allowed in Costa Rica considering how common these type of degree is in the Spanish world.
     
  16. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Then prove both your points. And before you start, I imagine propios might be allowed in Public Universities. UNEM is Private. The rule I quoted covers all Private Universities. And no - approval of each individual program - doesn't sound anything like a "license to operate" to me. An I don't think the folks at CONESUP regard their organization as one that simply takes fees and issues licenses either.

    But go ahead, Johann. I didn't expect you'd give up easily. As Pat Benatar sang, many years ago, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." Bring it!
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2022
  17. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    In Spain, the propio tiers are:

    1. Propio offered by a prestigious accredited school
    2. Propio offered by a non-prestigious but respectable accredited school
    3. Propio offered by an educational center or unaccredited school but backed by an accredited school (degree awarded by the accredited school)
    4. Propio offered by an unaccredited school independently

    The government of Spain doesn't directly oversee propio programs, but they do it indirectly through threatening loss of accreditation or fines and penalties against an accredited school that backs a faulty propio program. With independent unaccredited schools, they just shut them down if too many problems come up. Educational Centers and unaccredited schools that are backed by accredited schools rely on their relationships with those accredited schools to survive. Sometimes problems can't be resolved and the accredited school just dumps the center or unaccredited school, and they usually don't last too long after that.
     
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  18. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    @Johann766 P.S. It says "for each program." How open to (mis) interpretation is that? It's NOT.

    Johann 666.
     
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    This is very good info to have, on Spanish propios. Thanks. And this Spanish info would not seem to contradict, or have much, really, to do with the Costa Rican rule on Private Universities. UNEM is basically a reasonably-accredited school (Private - CONESUP) that (like all private uni's in CR) requires approval for each course of study. UNEM ticks those boxes domestically (3 degrees) and then sells forty-'leven other degrees to foreigners, out the puerta trasera - the back door.

    The authorities don't seem to care - probably because UNEM makes enough money that way that they can stay afloat to teach costarricenses at reasonable rates - in the degree programs they have permission for. It's a win/win for Costa Rica - and UNEM. NOT a win for extranjeros.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2022
  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Although I've never read of this happening, and I'm nowhere near 100% sure, I think it might just barely be possible to find one. Possible, but unlikely. I don't know enough about the (many and marked) differences among NACES members - but I'll throw this out for your consideration. What about the one that gave the best evaluations for ENEB / Isabel 1 degrees? Was that ECE or am I having a 'senior moment?' If I am - look back in the threads and see who it was - and go for it. The worst they can say is 'no.' But as I said, time is of the essence. And I'd certainly stay clear of WES, with one of these.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2022
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