If a course is homologated, is it considered official in Spain or still propio?

Even if workable - would such "doctorates" be worth much? Sad, to think of even the highest academic achievement becoming debased. Another "All-you-can-eat Cheap Credits Buffet" scenario...

If there isn't a law -- there should be.

 

...and there is a law. There are no Doctoral level propios and none permitted. Propio degrees do not provide access to doctoral programs, either. Thank G*d, neither does Groupon -- so far.

All this and more here: https://acei-global.blog/2015/05/28/spain-understanding-and-evaluating-the-titulo-propio/

 

If someone truly wants an easy-peasy "doctorate" from a Spanish-speaking (or bilingual) school, there are plenty of legal private universities in places like Panama. They vary from quite good to degree mills of the worst order. These schools often operate under a license which makes their degrees legal - but many are not their country's equivalent of "accredited." Hence, there is little or no academic oversight and the degrees of such licensed schools are of less-than-mainstream standing. Accordingly, US recognition of these is often a crapshoot at best. Some are cheap, some are easy, some are both -- or neither.

There are also recognized schools like Universidad Central de Nicaragua. Degrees here are known to have rigor, but are still inexpensive. Nowadays, they have far too many dual and triple awards with other schools, for my taste. I think their own home-grown degrees are the best they offer. Some time ago, I've known this school's own degrees to get good reception in US. Haven't heard anything new either way for a long time. Don't really know what's happening in that regard today.

 

My educated guess is that it's not illegal if they mention that it's propio.
It would just not be recognized by the government I presume.

 

No. To offer one would contravene the Law of University Reform Act (1983). I don't think any legit school is brave or foolhardy enough to try that. And any non- legit school:

(1) You don't want a degree from -- do you?
(2) Would probably get shut down promptly for trying. Someone would go to the old "juzgado" for sure.

 

But there is this dba programme from a spanish school that is propio and is convalidated by the miguel de cervantes university so I think there must be a loophole they use.

 

From here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes_European_University I gather that Miguel de Cervantes (a Private University) does not, itself, award Doctorates. What they are doing, convalidating "doctorates" of a private school I do not know. In fact, I see no valid reason the private school should be allowed to award any doctorate, convalidation by any other school notwithstanding.

A propio comes from a school that is legitimately allowed to award certain other degrees. I'm not sure this is the case here. Has this private school any real degree-granting permission of its own? Call it conjecture, if you will, but I think this convalidation may be simply for profit.

Loophole? I'm guessing convalidating others' degrees is a tad less risky than actually awarding them. But yeah - now I remember - all those Fazley College grads got real U. Wales diplomas... Uni. of Wales got away with that for years, until the wheels fell off. We'll see what happens, here.

 

Oh - and a look at the Miguel de Cervantes U. site again confirms - no Doctorates of their own. They offer some propios - but again, no doctorates among them, either.
https://www.uemc.es/

I still fail to see why this University would risk its reputation by validation of doctorates it does not itself award, for private schools with degree-granting authority that is murky at best, likely insufficient for what is being awarded, or, at worst, possibly nonexistent.

 

Johann, I'd be very interested in getting to know according to which legal requirement (law and paragraph within the law) Spanish Universities are not allowed to offer propio bachelors and PhDs. Do you maybe remember?
I tried to look into the Law of University Reform Act 1983 with google translate but I didn't find the precise paragraph.
Ucam does offer a dba and with another partner even propio Bachelors. However they are the only school I know about who do.

Old topic but I'm interested.

 

Newsflash! The bachelor's level is not prohibited, it turns out. Look for "graduado" programs. I don't know which schools offer these. Doctorates are conspicuous by not being mentioned They list what you CAN do, only. And a Master propio (or any propio degree) as I'm pretty sure you know, will not qualify you for Doctoral study in Spanish Universities. No loophole I know of, here.

The deal is: Universities are not allowed to award Doctorados propios. It appears some are validating similar degrees of offshore schools. Likely because nobody's written a law covering validation of doctorates from Universities not in Spain. I think this kind of action is potentially as murky and problematic as many of the offshore degrees that get validated. ... There will likely come a day of reckoning for Spanish schools that do this. They know what these degrees are like -- but money talks.

The allowable propio qualifications are:

Máster / Master (the most usual qualification awarded propio)
Especialista / Specialist,
Experto / Expert,
Diploma
Técnico / Technician, and
Graduado / Graduate. - That's equivalent to a Bachelor's in the Spanish system. Duration 3 or 4 years, 180-240 ECTS.



Hope this helps. Let us know if you find any graduados propios on offer.

 

Technically, I believe there is no law to prevent propio PhDs as long as you state that they are not accredited. This is how Cambridge International University operates and so Universidad de los pueblos de Europa. Propio PhDs are useless in Europe so it is a bit just of an expensive diploma to hang on the wall.

Costa Rican schools started with the idea of propio PhDs by using a law that would allow them to grant them as long as they were with international partners. As they became successful by selling these degrees, Spanish and Mexican schools are following the same trend.

Universitam in Mexico grants propio Post Docs and bachelors degrees (https://universitam.com). Universidad Quetzalcoatl (http://www.uniquetzalver.com/#) also does the same thing. None of these universities seem to have a physical location nor real faculty, they are just entities that grant diplomas based on work completed at private places around the world. People buy them because they appear in a Mexican Minister of Education web site.

A similar idea of the propio degree but in the US is California University Foreign Credential Evaluation service. They registered a high school in California and with this authority grant equivalent US PhDs. The California government has been trying to shut them down but technically they are granted propio degrees as they are an educational institution (high school) granting equivalen degrees. Check the diploma below;
https://www.numss.com/numss-phd-approved-in-the-united-states/

The diploma states "Department of education NCES ID XXXXX". To the average person, it looks like a real degree issued by a university in California but few check that this ID is just a high school registration.
The same idea as the Mexican and Spanish degrees, register a high school to get a number and now issue all the degrees you want with the same ID but just state "equivalent degrees" to cover your butts.

 

And yes, the blurb says UCAM has been approved to award a DBA propio. Something murky about that. Propios don't require ministry approval. That's the point of them - by definition. To me, if a University gets Ministry approval, the degree is no longer a propio. I can't explain this - can they?

 

I take this whole post as meaning: Anybody can do anything they want and get away with it. Loopholes trump law - and if you can't find one - pretend you have. My greatest fear is, you may be right. What you say, happens. That doesn't

(1) Make it right - or even legal, e.g. offering PhDs on a high school license.
(2) Make "getting with" such programs right.

You get one (or six) of these spooflicate degrees and get yourself in trouble for using it, who suffers? You - or the Costaraguan University upstairs from a bar? Definitely you. Enjoy that cell in Managua - or Phoenix - or wherever. While Paco, who sold you the thing, fritters your money away in the casino, or la casa de mala reputación. Buena suerte.

You're probably luckier if your money is gone and you never receive the diploma. That's been known to happen, too.

 

I agree but licensed professions normally required exams and this will filter the high school graduates pretending to be PhDs. The University jobs normally require a NACES or AICE evaluation report so as long as they become the gate keepers, the high school graduates with PhDs cannot get the jobs.

I have to be quite honest, my CLEA Masters degree took be about 1 year to complete with maybe few hours a week of work. It is not even close to what people spend here in Canada for a recognized degree. I am happy to list it as continuing education.

 

Maybe. But this doesn't legitimize people obtaining the degrees - or their being offered in the first place. The truth is probably that not nearly as many people go to that juzgado in Managua or Phoenix as ought to. No authority seems able or interested in shutting ANYTHING down anymore. Unless it fails to pay taxes. Then ... it and the people behind it are toast. Othewise it's "KEEP CALM - and carry on SWINDLING."

Looks like I finally made it. I'm officially an anachronism.

 

Deleted. Found the answer on NUMSS site.

 

Propio degrees are interpreted different by different evaluation services. 10 years ago, I got a NACES evaluation service to evaluate my propio masters from a Spanish University as a graduate diploma with University credits. Few weeks ago, I sent one from an Spanish and one Mexican and both were refused by a NACES and AICE service, the NACES service had evaluated my propio diploma as equivalent to a graduate diploma but now refuses to evaluate it.

They told me that they now look at a list of officially recognized degrees and if it is not in the list, the degree is refused. The NACES told me that they can say is a continuing education certificate.

There is a WES evaluation going around for a propio Spanish degree but my guess is that it is just a fluke, once they know the mistake they will rectify it.

You would need to follow an official Spanish or Mexican degree, but these are expensive as well. The official masters degree from Spain or Mexico can be about 5 to 10K that is about the same price you can get a US degree from an accredited school so you might as well do the American degree to avoid problems.

 

There are hundreds of schools that register every year under many loopholes such as religious schools, professional associations that can grant their own degrees, high schools that can grant degree equivalency, etc. There are people that open practices as pastoral counsellors with a 25 dlls Doctorate from Universal church or people that perform marriages with a 25 dlls ordination degree that just requires that you believe in the universe. This is the way we live now and things are not going to change so we need to learn to be consumer aware.

 

Being consumer aware means, in large part, means knowing what NOT to buy. You know where the knockoffs and fakes are -- but you don't buy 'em. You know they're worthless - and not to deal with that market. In regard to higher ed., it seems, many people are not learning this.

And Things DO change, at least sometimes. There have been dedicated individuals who have changed them. For example, the late Mr. Jeffrey Brunton - a conscientious attorney, who, with a very small staff, rid Hawaii of lowball, dishonest degree mills that had proliferated there. He litigated them out of existence. Unaccredited schools were still allowed, but they had (and still have to) play by rules that at least ensure honesty, if not academic standards. No degrees in less than a year, specific refund provisions, etc. etc.

Mr. Brunton passed on in 2016. We had some posts here subsequent to his death. https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/old-friend-of-degreeinfo-has-passed-away.47789/

We (and other countries) need more people of principles to remediate the damage and prevent further abuse. Meanwhile, people should look to their own principles and standards, to preserve themselves from hucksters - and not become hucksters themselves. The 'surreal' can be glorious in art -- but not in education.

 

There is a learning process. Education is business, if schools can only sell doctorates as propio degrees, they will do it as long as there is a market. Once the consumers realize that everyone blocks them from using these credentials, they will not buy them anymore. Then schools will offer post doctoral degrees or certificates (Some already do) as propio degrees, this can be tricky as these are credentials that are not in the education framework of most education systems.

There is also the whole market of certifications that is insane with certified this and that, institutions open for a period of time and sell these certifications with little effort required and then disappear. They use variations of known certifications such as Certified Professional Accountant instead of certified Public Accountant as they both are CPA or they use Certified International Project Manager instead of PMP (Project Management PRofessional). The psychology field is also insane with variations of psychology such as metaphysician in psychology, psychology consultant, certified therapist in holistic psychology, Certified Clinical Hypnotist, quantum psychologist, parapsychologist in therapeutical counselling and so on. In Canada I came across with philosophy counselling that is people that counsel based on philosophy.