Inexpensive Doctorates - Search your desired country

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by AsianStew, Aug 28, 2021.

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  1. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    At least with the Central University of Nicaragua trying it won't even work, WES won't evaluate it.
     
  2. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    I really want to hear more of your thoughts on that and how you came to that conclusion. Tomorrow is another day :emoji_relaxed: so I'm crossing my fingers:emoji_fingers_crossed:
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    WES also considers professional doctorates issued by EU countries to be equivalent to a US master's degree. They do this as a policy without taking any individual factors into account, no matter what evidence is produced to the contrary. This is true even if the school considers the degree equal to a PhD, the degree meets the same credit level as a PhD, is considered by the school to be a scholarly (not professional) doctorate, and the school system's PhD is something WES considers equal to a US PhD. At least, that was their policy at one time, and nothing could move them off of that. They seemed as bureaucratic as any government entity ever.

    Based on that thinking, I'm surprised WES considers AMERICAN PhDs--because they are "taught" degrees" to be equivalent to a PhD. Seriously. Based on their internal logic, they should not, because a US PhD is identical to a "taught" doctorate at an EU school. Heck, they should also reject US professional doctorates as well!

    Asshats wearing clown shoes.
     
  4. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    It's in my response to another poster in this thread.
     
    LearningAddict likes this.
  5. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Wow! I was not disappointed!
     
  6. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    WES is conservative, there are many NACES and AICE evaluation services. Just shop around.

    I have evaluated my degrees with WES and other NACES services. WES is the most difficult to deal with as they need letters of PhD validation, transcripts sent to them directly. Other NACEs or AICE evaluation services just need certified photocopies of your degree and transcripts.

    Any NACES evaluation would do for a regular academic job, some accept also AICE.
     
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  7. TTS

    TTS New Member

  8. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    "Blended" program though. Important to note, because that's going to increase the overall out-of-pocket price tag.

    About profit status: we need to keep in mind that the for-profit vs. non-profit issue is not a concern in every country like it is in the United States. In fact, in some places it's considered "swanky" to attend a for-profit.

    In other places, no one cares, they just judge each school on its individual merits which I think is the fairest and most sensible thing to do.
     
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  9. asianphd

    asianphd Active Member

    Agree. As I said before, in Southeast Asia, non-profit and for-profit are not relevant, and no one talking about them actually. In my country, the most productive and innovative universities are the so-called "for-profit" ones actually.
     
    LearningAddict likes this.
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Very well said.
     
    LearningAddict likes this.
  11. TTS

    TTS New Member

    I believe it can be completed completely via ODL mode. But whoever that is interested should enquire. If its ODL for $6000 all in, I think it is hard to beat for the price.
     
  12. PHDSeeker

    PHDSeeker New Member

    In response to Asian Stew's post earlier this year, I am also interested in an inexpensive doctorate in Business or Communication for my own learning goals and also because I may want to teach adjunct, online, or in the latter part of my career. I am 48 and I will likely still work another 15-20 years. I have wanted to always get my PHD or I am looking at a DBA to the more applied nature of it. I am self-employed and I am not required to get a PHD from a job requirement stand point in my current role. I still have a significant 5 figure student loan (I realize this is not a great move financially and I am passionate about keeping my sons from getting into significant student loan debt) so I do not want to take out student loans to complete the DBA. Most AACSB certified DBA programs in the USA are $50K in cost and I am unwilling to spend that much on the cost vs. benefit of the degree.

    Since the degree is for my own edification, I am very price sensitive. The AMA Online DBA program at a total cost of what appear to be $2000-4000 USD seems to be quite a deal. However, if I do choose to teach and I am in the US, I am wondering if the AMA DBA would be recognized in the US? I am wondering if getting a DBA at a non AACSB at a comparative cost of say $20-30k might be a better investment from a recognition stand point. Are there other US degrees that are slightly higher in cost than the Phillipine AMA program or non US (i.e. European) programs that are more highly regarded? I am doing research at this point and looking at starting the degree by next Fall.

    I have contacted AMA Online, but, they have not been great about answering follow up questions so that concerns me.

    I appreciate any and all feedback.

    Jonathan
     
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I should have responded to this at the time. It's a very good point. Personally, I don't need it since my first doctorate is from a US school with regional accreditation. That makes my second doctorate moot in most situations.
     
  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    As our colleague John Bear was known to say, it's important to be as sure as possible that the degree you seek will serve you both now and into the future. How? I say by removing as many variables to acceptance as possible.

    Also, acceptance of your credentials can by highly individualized. You have people who think the University of Phoenix is a diploma mill (it is not by any reasonable use of that term), and others who would readily accept actual diploma mill credentials.

    Since you're interested in teaching, let's stipulate that no school would knowingly overlook spurious credentials in order to employ someone they liked. But they might be more willing to accept a "square check" degree from that person since they want him/her and can legitimately accept his/her credential(s). But again, it's very individualized and general guidelines, while helpful, will not tell the full story.

    When I was full-time at UoP, I wanted to get doctoral pay for an instructor. She had a PhD from Central European University. CEU was (is?) accredited by the NY Board of Regents at the time, recognized as an accrediting agency by the US Department of Education. (And they only state agency so recognized.) Good enough, right? No. They would not accept it. But right after that, CEU became a candidate for RA, and on that basis they accepted it and changed her per-course fee to doctoral-level instructor.

    It's a slog. The more questions you introduce, the more variable your results may be.
    This is the crux of my point. There is no "recognized in the US" standard that is evenly applied. A degree from a school recognized by its own country is a good sign. A better one is a foreign degree evaluation of that credential. Those two might perform better than some non-RA institutional accreditation in the US (TRACS, DEAC, etc.). Or it might not. RA is good, but sometime programmatic accreditation (you cite AACSB, which is a good example) is necessary. Then there are the variables in the hiring process. Some situations might only require a "good enough" (checking the box) degree, while others will require you to be more competitive.

    Then there is the whole vanity angle, which motivates a lot of people to (a) get a doctorate and (b) cut as many corners as possible. But if you cut too many--and there's no real way to determine that in advance--you might find your degree useless in pursuit of some present (or future) goal. Worse, cut enough corners and you could be putting a time bomb in your resume and LinkedIn page.

    No one is ever going to arrest Julius Erving for impersonating a physician. But no one is going to offer him a faculty position at a university, either. Now, Shaquille O'Neal, on the other hand....
     
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  15. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    In Jamaica, probably nobody cares or even knows the difference between non-profit and for-profit private schools. One of the largest private universities in Jamaica, the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean, is for-profit. It is one of five universities in the country to achieve institutional accreditation (a relatively new type of accreditation).
     
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  16. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Have you explored the University of Philippines Open University's Doctor of Communication? https://fics.upou.edu.ph/programs/doctor-of-communication/
     
  17. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    For a very long time nobody seemed to care about it in the US, either. Then it became something that politicians realized they could weaponize and vilify so we didn't notice the things they should be doing but absolutely do not do.

    Kind of a recurring theme. Crumbling roads and we end up with months long debates, accusations, angry rants and competing media narratives about how there is an unemployed art school graduate and it MUST be the fault of the school for being for-profit. Heaven knows there has never been unemployed arts and humanities graduates before for-profit universities.
     
  18. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    To build on Rich's fabulous last post, limitations can be tricky. But, as with anything, you need to just go in with eyes wide open.

    There doesn't seem to be much harm to the careers of the medical researchers with PhDs from Rockefeller University, accredited by the NY Board of Regents. Yet, it may be the case that they just won't get the top pay if they decided for some reason to do adjunct work at the University of Phoenix. If you are a medical researcher with an established career then that relatively minor limitation may not really change the math for you especially if Rockefeller has the best program for your area of interest or the best facilities for the research you intend to carry out.

    I got on fine with an M.S. from an NA school (UMT). I got my promotion to a role which required a Masters. I secured a teaching position at a community college. I likely could have gone the rest of my career doing just fine with that as my highest degree. The added benefit of my MBA is, largely, that if the next community college insists on RA then I should be all set. Oh, and now I can at least theoretically adjunct at a proper business school. That's...not a lot of tangible reward. While it is nice being able to say (here mainly, no one else cares) that I have an MBA that is RA/AACSB the reality is...nobody else cares. I have spoken with recruiters as they periodically knock on my LinkedIn door gauging my interest in other positions. I get no more or no less recruiter touches post-MBA as pre-MBA.

    But my UMT MSM is also not a time bomb. Even if someone took issue with it down the line the reality is that it comes from a school accredited by a USDOE recognized accreditor. If I ran for school board and some local media outlet tried to paint it as a degree mill situation it would likely die on the vine.

    There have been occasions where people have declared degrees from perfectly legitimate, and RA, schools to be fake. A few years ago there was one guy with a PhD from Union who the media labeled as a fake doctor because...they didn't like his politics and Union seemed "sketchy" to them? Do a news search on any number of for-profit schools and what you'll get a lot of is press releases for new hires who have degrees from there.

    Sen. Dick Durbin was frothing at the mouth over for-profits. I feel like his criticism has become a bit more muted since he was joined by his fellow Senator from Illinois (and fellow Democrat) came onto the scene with a Capella doctorate.

    There is no universal acceptance unless you are going to a highly reputable school with an unassailable reputation. Even then, people find ways to try to undercut you (see also: this idiotic thing Ann Coulter said or any criticism that HES degrees are not Harvard degrees).

    Thing is, if you aren't a public figure then the likelihood of any of this nonsense happening goes down dramatically. It doesn't go away. You just need to be aware of whatever limitations a school or specific degree will bring. If you're OK with that, then enjoy.

    I can assure you that where I lived in Pennsylvania a good many employers would have avoided hiring a Notre Dame graduate at all costs out of Penn State loyalty.

    As it pertains to some of these non-US schools, WES only really comes up for a few people. And even if WES said your degree was 100% equivalent that is no guarantee that an employer will respect it, a US based school will consider it for admission to a program where that degree is required or that people won't laugh at you behind your back. Map out the limitations and move forward. If you have too many open questions then it probably isn't the program for you.
     
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  19. MasterChief

    MasterChief Member

    The inexpensive doctorate for AMA's DIT program initially lured me. I later dropped out. The admissions advisors were friendly and responsive, but the incompetence of the remaining staff was frustrating. The red tape of requiring my 83-year-old parent's signatures, my high school transcripts from 1987, and FedExing other documents to an unmanned office made me think twice. Your experience may be different than mine, but I'm glad I quit their program.
     
  20. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Doing the wrong doctorate--the school, the program, the process, whatever--is such a bad decision that it wouldn't be worth it to do for free.
     
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