PhD Business Administration, Paris College of International Education

Fascinating! Do you know of any students who have had a full degree evaluated? For example, would the PUIE MBA or MEd in ECE be considered RA masters in the US?

 

Masters has never been evaluated as only students trying to enter a PhD program would require that.

B.Ed. has been and accepted for application for US universities. Framington State M.Ed. is the one I recall off the top of my head.

 

Also, WASC has accepted the B.ED.as a teaching qualification.

 

I really hope this is true. I would enjoy having a good case of a school with genuinely debatable legitimacy which we could, well, debate on this board. I find threads on ENEB, UCN/Azteca and Euclid to be the most interesting here; what fun it is to discuss schools that are either obviously good or obviously bad?
Having said that: I frankly doubt that this school can get reliable RA equivalent evaluation. Need more evidence than just you saying so. Sorry.

 

If one looks at the older Paris College of International Education website (before the institution was renamed as a 'university' and still accessible here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210801074856/https://pcie.ac/administration-team.php), the administration page contained info about international faculty members at the college. There were follows with doctorates from Moldova (two members), Costa Rica, Romania and Jordan (also two members). However, I am having a hard time locating the present-day faculty. This info appears to have been excluded from the updated website section; https://puie.ac/overview/. Who's currently supervising the student's work at puie.ac? In the FAQ section, it only says: "PUIE teachers are available and can be reached virtually during office hours or by appointment."

 

Very fair observation. AFAIK the states are in fact the ones regulating teacher licensure, and WASC has nothing to do with it at all. Again, I'd need some evidence to persuade me otherwise.

 

Wow. Seven pages and we still need more evidence. Well, we've gone 50+ pages in the past, so...
This is getting to be a long trial. I think His Honour, Judge Stanislav, is gonna have to sequester the jury....

 

One way to look at it: are there other, better established, schools at the same recognition level? Whatever utility these degrees enjoy could potentially tell us something about what PUIE degrees are or should be worth. If this is the only beast of its kind, that would make it's graduates guinea pigs, now wouldn't it?

 

Yes, pretty much. Isn't it fun?

 

The Vice-President of PUIE (https://puie.ac/overview/) is also the Founder/CEO of California Metropolitan University (https://cmu.edu.eu/the-team/), which is likewise operating in France; https://cmu.edu.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/CMU-in-Paris.pdf. This other university even has a faculty member who has completed his doctoral educational journey at Azteca/UCN and his educational qualifications through USAT in Montserrat (also ENEB, but that's cool, at least with me)
https://cmu.edu.eu/the-team/
http://naude.eu/about/

 

I´d recommend PUIE to set up a dual or triple validation agreement with Azteca and UCN Since one faculty member graduated from there. I´m sure UCN/Azteca wouldn´t mind adding nummer 12345 to their partner list and PUIE would kind of have state recognition

CMU claims that IST College, Greece is a "learning hub" of their, I´m not sure if IST College is aware of that. IST claims to have several european accredited partner schools which confer the degrees.

 

At least there is no ambiguity about CMU's recognition. It is, in fact, completely unaccredited.
I'd rate it as a minor red flag for PUIE.

This doesn't say much about either university.

 

PUIE's conceit is that it has recognition status, comparable to UCN. But you are not wrong: UCN's recognition is less complicated. Having PUIE's degree validated by UCN will be an improvement.

My extremely lenient assessment is this: I am prepared to give a PUIE's graduate the benefit of the doubt and not dismiss the degree outright. But - I would not recommend enrolling in this school. Too much ambiguity, and in any case less evidence of a credible educational program than any accredited school, Euclid, or even UCN/Azteca European operation (the latter two I wouldn't recommend either).

 

Yes it is, Your Honour. Especially in your court.

 

I like to look at faculty credentials when I visit the websites of unaccredited colleges. You can’t make a virtual comprehensive quality assessment (I've always said that), but indications of highly problematic degrees leave me with less hope for the institution. When I see such questionable faculty degrees at colleges which are already quality assured by reputable agencies, I am more likely to see it as an anomaly of some kind (perhaps, a person was hired for other credentials) but I still notice it. I am not singling out licensed-only institutions. Recently, I saw this: https://www.cocc.edu/programs/world-languages/faculty.aspx (scroll down to the last faculty member’s PhD degree) and I had a comparable reaction. USAT Montserrat, Azteca and similar types of schools leave me with less hope. That’s why I will mention such things, even though they may appear slightly irrelevant in the context.

 

From a brief Google & Wikipedia expedition, there are quite the number of 'private universities' in France. While the public universities and the Grandes Ecoles are supposedly more numerous and more 'normative', the private universities range from tiny operations (as I presume PUIE is) to larger institutions. Here are a few examples to get our debates & research going:

Chavagnes Studium: An English-speaking private university focusing on the Liberal Arts

Leonardo da Vinci University Center: A private university offering postgraduate degree programs in business, management, and the like

INSEEC University: A private university (part of the multinational OMNES Education) offering BBA, MBA, and related programs in English and French

Catholic University of Paris: A private university dating back to 1875, offering a multitude of courses (Canon Law, Philosophy, Economics, Education, etc.) at all levels (BA, MA, PhD)

American University of Paris: A private university, which also possesses Middle States accreditation (making it unique in this short list)

Domuni Universitas: An old board favourite. Domuni is now a private university, run by the Dominican Order, and offers degrees in various Catholic and Human Rights-related subjects at all levels. (As an aside, I was happy to discover that they are now their own private university instead of merely relying on partnerships in France or in Rome to validate their degrees.)

There are quite a few more out there, but this sampling already shows that there are plenty of reputable (and some historic) universities running as 'private universities' in France.

From this initial search, I'd still argue that PUIE is probably one of the smaller, less well-established options out there as far as 'private universities' go. But if it is indeed a legally registered 'private university', that in and of itself shouldn't be a strike against it. As to the quality of its programs, that would be an entirely different matter that we could debate. The same goes for some of the claims about RA recognition as started above.

Unfortunately, I don't have LinkedIn, but maybe some of our super sleuths here would like to look up a few of these universities there to see what kind of professionals are using these degrees?

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As an aside, I know many of us might shy away from universities citing laws, codes, and whatnot as PUIE has done here. Yet, if Domuni is anything to go by, it may be normative in France.

 

Alternatively, why not offer a dual award? For an extra fee, graduates could get two diplomas: one from PUIE and another from UCN? Or even a third from Azteca?

I don't say this in jest. If the coursework aligns and all educational partners approve of such a deal, then why not? UCN & Azteca are no strangers to such arrangements, right?

 

As far as I understand PUIE is like the many unaccredited schools in Switzerland - legally allowed to award papers using the words Bachelor Master or PhD but that doesn´t mean these are state-recognized degrees.
I wonder why there are so many unaccredited schools in Switzerland and not that many in France.

 

Chavagnes Studium / Chavagnes International College seems to be a Catholic primary / secondary boarding school. Two divisions - young children and secondary program to University entrance. Secondary "college" is only for boys. All residential - saw no University level - or distance programs. They mention their wonderful record of University admissions for their graduating students - but not a Uni. of their own.