University of the Commonwealth Caribbean

The University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) offers online undergraduate and graduate programs at affordable tuition costs. They are currently offering a 50% tuition waiver in response to Covid-19.

https://www.ucc.edu.jm/online/programmes

 

Along with their partnership with Florida International University, I notice they have ASIC accreditation. I wonder what the benefit is for them. Some of the ASIC schools have dual accreditation at times.

 

I think ASIC accreditation is trash. Schools seem to be accredited based on their ability to pay. Many of UCC's programs are accredited by the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ). They have applied for institutional accreditation from the UCJ. Institutional accreditation is fairly new in Jamaica, and only three schools have achieved this. In the past, each program had to be individually accredited. Now, schools have the option of applying for institutional accreditation.

 

You're correct about the three schools. However, UCJ was always important in terms of programmatic accreditation. There are instances in which people graduated from a UCJ registered school but their particular program was not yet accredited, and they had issues obtaining employment. Institutional accreditation is an aspect of UCJ that has become important in the last 5 years or so.

Btw, in Jamaica, it's just NCU lol

 

UCC offers asynchronous graduate and undergraduate programs.

MBA - 10k total for international students; 7.5k for regional students (assuming the Caribbean); 7k for Jamaicans
B.Sc. in Business Administration (concentration in Accounting and Financial Management) - 2.4k per year (Jamaicans); 4k (regional); 5.6k (international)
B.S. in Information Technology; B.S. in Business Admin (Marketing) - 2.8k per year (Jamaicans); 4k (regional); 5.6k (international)

https://online.ucc.edu.jm/

 

ASIC accreditation is meaningless academically. It's main value seems to be in misinterpreting what it means. That's not good.

 

Yes, "most" Jamaicans think that anything foreign is good. I am sure my Ashworth degree would probably carry more weight than any Jamaican degree, including UWI, which is the Harvard of Jamaica lol.

BTW, UCC was the first school I attended. I was a part-time evening student pursuing a B.Sc. in Human Resource Management in Fall 2009. I think I attended 4 evenings a week after working 8 to 4 in a pharmaceutical warehouse Monday to Friday. I remember falling asleep in class many nights. I was only 17 when I started my first semester. By the second semester, I took a leave of absence and enlisted in the police academy at 18 and 3 months old... haha! Memories...

 

If the Ivy League inexplicably admitted the University of Phoenix you would probably see student making a conscious effort to go there over schools like, say, Penn State.

Once people form certain assumptions about certain brands (or locations or associations) they will stick to them.

Even the crappiest bank in all of Zurich would be impressive to one impressed with the idea of a Swiss bank account.

My sister-in-law thinks that wearing Armani-Exchange makes her fancy.

To my mind, ASIC is generally harmless. I do think they play up the confusion around hte word "accreditation." But it, in and of itself, is not a scam. Neither is it of any actual value.

I do know that the stigma around Caribbean based medical education is so strong, though, that I would have to wonder if it bleeds into other fields as well. Like, does a person view "Caribbean MBA" the same way as "Caribbean MD?" Hard to say. It's a big world with many different views of employers. But, as with many other schools we've discussed I'd have to imagine it would depend on the totality of the picture the resume creates than any one element.

 

Oh certainly. I was just musing as to what the impact might be on a US based learner who earned a degree from a Caribbean school, in general.

 

I see they offer the DBA and DProf on behalf of the University of Sunderland (UK). The program(me) is 7K pounds per year, 3 years minimum.

In the DProf, the student takes some research courses and produces what looks like a thesis. It is, literally, a professional doctorate.

The DBA is structured in the same way at the same tuition.

Interesting that the tuition is quoted in pounds sterling, not Jamaican dollars. Other programs are priced in US dollars, not Jamaican dollars.

Their website says the DProf is very flexible (I assume they mean with the thesis.) The DBA is for business and management studies. Neither degree has a curriculum beyond the research courses. Thus, the degree is awarded on the basis of the thesis. I would imagine that Sunderland makes that call.

The school teaches the beginning modules over an 18-month period, where students follow along lock-step. Then the thesis begins.

Sunderland is a UK school. It is a "post-1992" university, meaning it was a non-degree-granting school before that, when Britain took a bunch of polytechnics and colleges and gave them their own degree-granting authority. This is a big deal. For example, Leicester would not allow students to appoint an advisor whose doctorate was from a post-1992 school. But outside of the UK it wouldn't matter a lot, I would imagine. Just another foreign school no one ever heard of. The Times has it ranked around 1,000 in the world. Other sources has it at about 100 of 130-or-so British universities (consistent with the tier 1,000 worldwide ranking). But again, none of that should matter too much to most graduates from outside the UK.

But....I find elsewhere that the doctoral degrees are available only to "Caribbean national students only." In fact, it would appear all of the degrees are that way, according to their tuition/fees sheet. Yet, beyond the tuition sheet, I can find no other references to such a restriction. Not sure what constitutes a "Caribbean national," but it must exclude US students.

Perhaps another poster with better judgment than mine will clarify the availability of these programs to US students?

 

The undergraduate programs on the main website are quoted in Jamaican dollars.

Why would they list tuition for Jamaicans, Regional (Caribbean), and International if their programs weren't available to those outside of the Caribbean?

Well, it certainly excludes the U.S. since it's not a part of the Caribbean, save for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Caribbean nationals could mean those born/living in the Caribbean and those born in but living outside of the Caribbean, like myself.

On a separate note, their final exam policy for online students:

"These courses are taught completely online but will require the student in Jamaica to attend the assigned UCC Campus to sit proctored end-of-modules examinations. Students studying outside of Jamaica will now sit their end-of-semester-assessment examinations from the convenience of their home using a ‘live’ online proctoring service called ProctorU."

 

I don't know. But the tuition sheet clearly states, repeatedly, that programs are for "Caribbean nationals" only. Yet the website has other implications here and there. I've written them for clarification regarding the doctoral programs.

 

I received no response from this school regarding the eligibility of North Americans to study at a distance there, particularly in the doctoral programs done through (with?) Sunderland.

 

Do you mean Americans (i.e., United States)? North America includes Jamaica, where UCC is located, and much of the Caribbean. So, of course, North Americans are eligible to participate in the program.

 

By all means let's get pedantic. Yes, the Caribbean nations and territories are technically part of North America. But as Steve points out, cultural distinctions are often made differently. For example, "North American" can mean what he said--US and Canadian. It can also include Mexico (since Mexico is distinct from Central America--yet Central America is also part of North America), and so on.

And while we're being pedantic for no particularly helpful reason, let's not forget that on a true-false test, if something is sometimes false, it is false. So, if some North American's are excluded, then an assertion that North Americans are eligible for admission--while sometimes true--is false overall.

Hopefully, that will let us graduate from second grade.

But it still doesn't answer the question, and neither does the school. Blech.