The Association of MBAs' international accreditation service?

National Commission on Accreditation (NCA): 1949 - 1974
Council on Postsecondary Accreditation (COPA): 1975 - 1993
Commission on Recognition of Postsecondary Accreditation (CORPA): 1993 - 1996
Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA): 1996 - Present
http://www.chea.org/About/NAF/Harcleroad.pdf

The Association of MBAs was founded in 1967 by eight with MBAs from the US (Harvard and Wharton) and two from the first intake at London Business School. This started as the Business Graduates Association (BGA) and coincided with the setting up in the UK of London and Manchester Business Schools and the growth of management education in the rest of Europe at IESE and INSEAD. The BGA developed into the Association of MBAs (1987).
Association of MBAs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Our History | Association of MBAs - mbaworld

 

Just for comparison:

AMA: accrediting medical programs since 1942
ABET: accrediting engineering programs since 1936
ABA: accrediting law programs since 1923
AACSB: accrediting business programs since 1919

They didn't wait for approval from CHEA or its predecessor agencies.

 

Thanks for the explanation. :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::

 

Times changed and all the agencies or most joined CHEA.

In the past when Internet and WWW in each home were a dream the unaccredited choices existed and some were accepted. With time they all needed to gain recognized accreditation.

So in early 19 century maybe that was OK but later the ABET, ABA, etc joined CORPRA, COPA, CHEA etc.

I think they excised and had a level of acceptance in early stages. There must be a reason why they joined CHEA.

 

CHEA is like a professional society/advocacy group for accreditation agencies. Accreditors join CHEA for the same reason that doctors join the AMA, or lawyers join the ABA.

But not all doctors join the AMA, and not all lawyers join the ABA. That doesn't necessarily mean they are bad doctors or lawyers. And not all accreditors join CHEA either. That doesn't necessarily mean they are illegitimate.

Nobody "needs" to join CHEA; membership is totally voluntary. In practice, it's true that most respected accreditation agencies in the US are CHEA members, but there are obvious exceptions.

For example, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, or NAAB, has the same role for architects that ABET does for engineers, and it's been around for almost as long (since 1940). State architecture boards typically look for NAAB accreditation, just as state engineering boards typically look for ABET accreditation. But NAAB is not a member of CHEA, and it has no current recognition from USDoE either. This does not trouble the architects at all.

Another example is the American Chemical Society, which has been accrediting chemistry degree programs for decades. Again, no CHEA and no USDoE. This does not trouble the chemists either.

Does it really make sense to evaluate the legitimacy of NAAB or ACS accreditation on the basis of CHEA recognition -- instead of the recognition of the professional communities that they serve ?

 

I get it,

Like PMI has its accreditation of Project and Program management programs.
I don't think they are CHEA members.

So as long as the university has recognized institutional accreditation they can also have independent program accreditation.

The independent program accreditation can be from valid accrediting body or from a mill.

 

Really? ....

 

In practice, I don't think accreditation mills are really a problem in this situation.

A school that goes through all of the trouble and expense to get valid institutional accreditation is probably not going to compromise its reputation by advertising questionable programmatic accreditation. And even if it did, the institutional accreditor might have something to say about it.

Are there real-world examples of legitimate schools with questionable programmatic accreditation ? Does this issue actually exist ?

For example, AMBA (the original concern of this thread) accredits the business programs at Oxford and Cambridge. Does it seem likely that these schools would want their business programs to be accredited by a mill ?

 

Less wonderful accreditation entity can be deceptive, they will list many legitimate schools in their lists and then add a few questionable once. Who will pay is naive and less informed people who will see something like our Engineering programs are accredited by Oxford Commission on Accreditation of Engineering programs.

Its great that there are successful respected independent accrediting organizations out there but without an oversight there are listed among them less then wonderful accreditation entities.

At the minimum there would be a listing of recognized accrediting agencies.

 

Not hardly! And as you’ve reminded, the thread was concerning AMBA accreditation. AMBA is legitimate … VERY legitimate AND internationally recognized as so!

 

This is just too funny!

 

Well -- something like it, anyway. Consider this place, that has shut-up-shop, at least temporarily. CMBA Certified Masters of Business Administration For $300, an MBA graduate could write an exam through them. On completion, he/she would then have a "Certified MBA." That would -- so they indicated -- put the holder's degree "ahead" of others and make it more useful for employment etc. They awarded "Certified MBAs" to people from non-starter "Universities" like AMBAI - http://www.ambai.org/ That uh..."school" no longer calls itself a "University" and has stopped issuing its unaccredited "degrees" as far as I know.

What amazes me is the number of people from 100% legit, accredited-plus Western Governors U., who thought paying this CMBA outfit would make their perfectly good MBAs somehow "better." First bad business decision for SO many recent WGU business grads. Look through the "Certified MBA" list - you'll see what I mean...literally hundreds of WGU grads fell for this. And two AMBAI grads...

It may not meet your description exactly, CalDog - but it's close...

Johann

 

Good point Johann and this CMBA accredited by autonomous accrediting body listed in the same list as supporting body as AMBA.

 

You don't get it. Those hundreds of WGU students didn't take the CMBA exam because they fell for a sales pitch to make their MBA degrees "better". Instead, they took the CMBA exam for a very simple and logical reason -- inexpensive academic credit. The "100% legit, accredited-plus" WGU administration accepted the CMBA exam for educational assessment, and offered academic credit if you passed. In fact, I think that WGU may have actually required MBA students to pass the CMBA exam to qualify for their degrees.

This policy was no secret; WGU issued a press release in 2006 to announce it:

So WGU MBA students took the CMBA exam because WGU encouraged (required?) them to do so. If anyone "fell" for anything, it was the WGU administration, not the WGU students.

 

The CMBA certification obviously hasn't taken off; the market apparently doesn't see it as necessary. However, there is no evidence that the CMBA exam was bogus. Western Governor's University certainly didn't think so.

Like the Bar exam for JD graduates, the PE exam for engineering graduates, the medical board exams for MD graduates, or the CPA exam for accounting graduates ?

We can legitimately question whether or not a post-graduation certification exam is really necessary for MBA graduates. However, there is obviously ample precedent for such exams with other professional degrees. So it's not an inherently unreasonable concept, and it's not surprising that someone tried to market a product to fill this niche.

And California lets people from unaccredited law schools and engineering programs take the Bar and PE exams. In fact, it is technically possible to qualify for both exams with no college degrees at all, if you have sufficient work experience. This does not mean that the California Bar or PE exams are bogus.

 

My apologies, CalDog. Thanks for the information. As you said, I didn't "get it" and I'm sorry.

Now, it looks to me like the WGU administration, with good intentions and its well-regarded "competence-based" philosophy, made what turned out to be a not-so-good choice. I'm sure that, had WGU officials known that CMBA would certify WGU grads along with those who had "clinker degrees" like AMBAI, they would have reconsidered.

By the way, I'm no expert on California education, including the CalBar. However, it IS my understanding that grads of unaccredited law schools are allowed to write - but only those schools approved by CalBar. AFAIK, AMBAI had no approval from any business program accreditor - or anyone else.

It appears to me that WGU failed its own grads on this. Perhaps it is understandable, perhaps not. I would have expected better of this school.

Johann

 

WGU was hardly the only school that took the CMBA exam seriously, as shown by the archived news stories on the CMBA website. Some examples:

Ashland and SUNY-New Paltz are ACBSP accredited. Nevada is AACSB.

 

You could make a case that any luster for the "Certified MBA" credential was diminished by ICI's willingness to certify graduates of AMBAI or other questionable schools.

But WGU primarily used the CMBA exam for purposes of assessing competency. And for that purpose, it doesn't matter whether or not the test is open to graduates of unaccredited schools. For example, Charter Oak State College awards credit for high GRE subject exam scores, yet there is nothing to stop graduates of AMBAI (or Almeda, Rochville, or MUST University) from taking GRE exams.

*****

Let's try a quick comparison:

- The GRE subject exams are developed by a private testing agency (ETS), and are open to any candidate (including those from questionable schools). They are intended to assess your knowledge of material presented in traditional undergraduate degree programs. If you can get a high score on the GRE, then it follows you understand subject concepts at an undergraduate level, and deserve credit towards an undergraduate degree on that basis. So COSC awards academic credit to successful GRE examinees.

- The CMBA exam was developed by a private testing agency (ICI) and was open to any candidate (including those from questionable schools). It was intended to assess your knowledge of material presented in traditional MBA degree programs. If you could get a high score on the CMBA exam, then it followed that you understand business concepts at a master's level, and deserved credit towards an MBA degree on that basis. So WGU awarded academic credit to successful CMBA examinees.

What's the difference here ?

 

Not much - but some. Did WGU actually award academic credit for the exam? How many credit-hours? I thought the deal was, you had to HAVE your MBA in-hand before writing the CMBA exam.

Another difference is - I have no problem with COSC awarding credit to knowledgeable students who went to questionable schools.
I hope they do well at COSC.

I DO have a problem with ICI "certifying" someone's sub-$500 (yes!) MBA. People pay $8,000 - $15,000 or more and work hard for a "good" MBA. Since when should an AMBAI "degree" get a seal-of-approval that makes it equal to WGU, Harvard or any other good school? if AMBAI University were simply unaccredited, like, say California Pacific or Frederick Taylor U - I'd say maybe OK - but that's not the case. And YES - the Harvard comparison was used in an old AMBAI ad for the CMBA process.
Here it is: AmbaiU Online Business Programs - Certified MBA ICI

It's obviously just a money-maker -- and I think it's wrong. I also think it's significant that:

(1) AMBAI is no longer offering "degrees" of any type or calling itself a University
(2) ICI is not presently offering the CMBA

I dunno ...is one or are both under advisement on this issue? There are degree mills, accreditation mills and certification mills out there. I don't like to see "degrees" from a "school" like AMBAI receive the same form of approval as those from WGU. there's an immense gulf between 'em -- and there should continue to be. It's not generally wise to "gild the lily." It's NEVER acceptable to "gild the stinkweed."
Johann

 

'nother post that said the same thing. Sorry. (Johann)