Foreign DL Graduate Degrees

I would like to earn a MA or MS degree for my personal satisfaction. I have a limited amount of money to do this with and, so, I thought that a foreign DL program would be my best bet. Although this will be for my own satisfaction, I would like for the college or university granting the degree to be fully legally recognized in its home country.

My interests are in the liberal arts and sciences, the social sciences, and information technology. My ideal cost is under $3,000 for the entire program, but I can stretch and pay a little bit more if necessary. I'm able to pay total costs up front. I am not a good candidate for a competency-based program, so I'm not considering those.

I don't think this will help, but I have a year of graduate-level coursework, completed between 2012 and 2014, that's getting ready to turn 10 years old and age out. I'm open to US universities who would accept 12-15 credits toward a 30-credit MA in Liberal Arts or Interdisciplinary Studies if it would allow the remaining 15-18 hours to come in under my budget.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

-RG

 

This site might help - Master's programs as low as <$2600 complete. https://www.onlineu.org/most-affordable-colleges/masters-degrees
So might this - https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/top/cheapest-online-colleges/ But - Lowest per-hour grad cost I saw here was $257. Only 2 others under 300.

 

I think I'm going to do a master's degree through ENEB and Universidad Isabel I. Before I click the buy button on Groupon I'm going to sleep on it and then take another look.

 

I can recommend it. Not sleeping it over (ok, well, I can recommend that, too), but ENEB and its programmes.

 

The courses in the Master in International Trade seem very interesting. I'm also thinking that an International Trade degree is the perfect degree to take from a foreign University.

 

One thing that surprised me was that the programs, such as the MBA, that have a lot more modules still only carry 60 ECTS credits and are supposed to take the same 18 months to complete as the degrees with fewer modules.

Canadian forum member RF_Valve said WES rated his 'propio' degree, granted by the same university, as equivalent to a Canadian graduate diploma. Since graduate diplomas aren't common in the USA, I'm guessing/assuming that the degree would be found equivalent to a US masters degree since that's the closest credential that we have? After all, 30-credit masters degrees by coursework only are very common in the USA.

Thoughts?

 

Absolutely. Couldn't be more appropriate! Another thing - a Certificate in Business Spanish (which this school offers) should carry mucho más poder (much more clout) because it was earned at a Spanish language-of-instruction University, not your local Anglo-Co-Co or a Multi-lingo thingy-whatever.

I'm thinking that in some situations - the certificate could count for more than the degree.

 

I read that the certificate wasn't really good and that someone would be better off using the Duolingo app. But, that assessment was based, I think, on the certificate also being self-study. However, someone else said the way these degrees are set up is that the student will have to do some outside reading/research to pass the quizzes/exams and recommended them only for the self-motivated. I would think that this applied to the certificate in Business Spanish also.

That's not a problem for me, because there are a lot of free Spanish tutorials on the Internet. I also spent 6 months in Colombia and hit it off with my AirBnB host who I still keep in touch with, so I have a Spanish tutor if I need one (plus I'm going to tell her about the Spanish-language version of these programs because they're the same price). Plus, I know some connected people in Colombia who would be able to point me in the right direction if I wanted to focus on South America.

You know what's crazy/eerie though? I recently spoke to my old psychologist* about my next steps since I don't think I want to pursue computer science anymore, and he told me to give serious thought to going into the import/export industry. And, then, this opportunity comes and almost literally falls into my lap. I don't believe in coincidences.

*I put myself into counseling when, at age 36 (I'm 49 now), I was told that I was completely and permanently disabled due to lupus. I needed help processing, and adjusting to, my new reality. My psychologist became sort of a mentor to me and we've kept in touch over the years.

 

So do I. Do you know anyone in the Medellín Cartel - or do you hang with those crazy Cali guys?
...Oh. Not that kind of connections? OK. Sorry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medellín_Cartel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cali_Cartel

 

No, I just know a couple of people who own businesses. I was in Armenia in the coffee growing region. Medellin had too much air pollution (I'm asthmatic) and Cali kind of scared me. Armenia didn't exact the "gringo tax" either, which made it even more affordable. The exchange rate when I was there was amazing.

 

I pulled the trigger on the ENEB/Isabel I University master's degree for $249. I went to the WES website and used their free Degree Equivalency Tool to get an idea about the equivalency of a one-year master's degree (60 ECTS) from Isabel I University. The school wasn't in their database, but other schools like it (private) were in the database. I did multiple equivalencies for the degree of "Master" (with accent over the A) with different majors from different private universities in Spain and the Castilla region where Isabel I is located. They ALL came back as equivalent to a US master's degree. I also tried to do this at the ECE website, but they didn't have a tool.

 

Now I'm wondering if I should do the MBA and the Masters. I emailed ENEB and they said I could pay the $50 price difference and upgrade to the dual degree. I mean, it really is too good of a deal to pass up, right?

 

I know nothing about ENEB, will take a look.
Are they legit?

 

They have the legal right to confer degrees. Does that satisfy your definition of "legit?" And if you do the work, I think you will get an ENEB Isabel 1 degree in your hand. Participants in this thread have very high expectations of what their $249 degree will do for them. Maybe they will be met - or close enough that they are worth far more than $249. I'd say a good US evaluation of such a degree would send the value up twenty-fold at least. Is that going to happen? I have no idea. I don't think anyone can predict such things. That's just me - and a few books, e.g. "Future Babble" I've read.

If you think a 20 to 1 payback is likely, then these programs are almost irresistible. I'm not buying one because I have absolutely no use for any business degree even at $249. All I can say is the degree is legal and I think it's worth at least $249. If you get $249 worth of recognition and satisfaction from it - you should be reasonably happy. If your gamble pays off and you get $5000 worth - you should be ecstatic. But nobody really knows for sure it will. Nobody.

If you're a gambler of any sort, I think this is a 'way better bet than sending several thousand dollars to some dubious outfit in Panama or a Swiss canton. I'm not going to tell you, Lerner, to send / not send your money - I have no right to make that decision for you and anyway, that opens up the blame-can if anything goes wrong. I will tell you that you are adult enough to read this stuff over, read ENEB's material and make up your own mind.

 

If you have to ask....

 

Johann:
The single MBA or Master's degree tuition is actually about $7200 dollars. For the dual degree it's about $8400 dollars. ENEB has done a 96% tuition discount for a limited time. I received an email that said the tuition reduction is until June 16 or all seats are filled. We'll know soon if this is true. So, it's not a "$249 degree", that's a misnomer in my opinion.

Lerner:
Universidad Isabel I de Castilla is a private Spanish university that is recognized by the appropriate ministry/department in Spain. It is authorized by the Spanish government to award graduate degrees. It is my understanding that business schools, like ENEB, do not have the authorization to award degrees, only certificates and diplomas. So, they partner with a university and the university awards the degree. Apparently, this is a common arrangement outside of the United States. Just because something isn't the norm in the US doesn't mean it's dubious. It just means it's different, and you can't judge another country's legal and educational system by US standards - each country has it's own standards.

As far as degree equivalency, I wrote in an earlier post that I used the WES Degree Equivalency Tool to get an idea about how a degree from Universidad Isabel I de Castilla would hold up against a US master's degree and they came back equivalent to a US master's degree. Isabel wasn't in the WES database, but other private universities were (I wanted to compare apples to apples).

I put in the required information and chose a degree completion time of 1 year (even though it's supposed to take 1.5 years, but it would've been a lie to say 2 years because the program is only 60 ECTS credits and not 120 ECTS credits). I ran the tool for IE Universidad and Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio, both private universities just like Isabel I. The degrees came back as equivalent to a US master's degree. It might be true that they came back as graduate diplomas in other countries. But, graduate diplomas are common outside of the US; that's not the case here. We have graduate certificates, but those consist of only a few courses, not a complete academic program.

The few graduate diplomas we do have are advanced credentials for people who already have a master's degree; they're in between the master's degree and the doctorate. So, the closest US equivalent to a 60 ECTS (one year) European master's degree would be an American master's degree. One year, two year, and three year long master's degrees are common in the USA and regardless of the number of credits they're ALL master's degrees.

I took a screenshot of the PDF results page that was emailed to me. You can see it here: https://imgur.com/a/OSpQFAm. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

I'm going to email WES and try to find out why Isabel I isn't in their database. But, to be fair, only 7 of the 21 private universities in Spain are in the WES database. I'll report back when I hear from them. I hope this helps!

 

I hope you were joking. It's not unreasonable for an American to not be familiar with the degree/university legalities of foreign universities. Of course, everyone knows the big names but just like here in the USA there are a lot of lesser known, but totally legitimate, universities that fly under the radar. What makes things tougher is that Americans tend to judge and evaluate other countries by our standards, and that's not fair.

The only difference between Universidad Isabel I de Castilla in Burgos, Spain and Universidad de Burgos is that one is private and the other public. The distinction between public and private universities in Spain is based on whether someone wants to pursue employment in the private sector or public sector. To work for the Spanish government you have to have a degree from a public university. That's the major distinction. A lesser distinction is that public universities are lower cost than private ones, because most European countries heavily subsidize the tuition of their citizens and EU compatriots. As a matter of fact, nobody pays tuition in Norway, not even people from outside of the EU (you do have to show you have enough money up front, in the bank, for living expenses). So, it's not unreasonable for someone to be wary about a system that's so different from ours.