Lowest cost online MBA's (USA or Abroad)

[theedude]

I have been looking at low cost (per course hour) online MBA programs either in US or abroad and have come up with a few things. I'm excluding WGU and others from the list, because as someone that would be part time due to family/work they really aren't cheaper. This is what I have come up with but want to see what others have found:

University of the People (no tuition, but pay for application & exams):
www.uopeople.edu

California Coast University ($230 per credit hour, $690 per course):
www.calcoast.edu

Manipal University Jaipur, India ($412 per semester, $1647 for full MBA):
www.onlinemanipal.com


Anybody able to find anything else? Or that allows people to take individual courses for those of us that go at a slow pace or need professional development?

[ashkir]

Texas A&M Corpus Christi is about $12,500 which is regionally accredited I believe.

[StoicJ]

Hellenic American University MBA. $3000 (plus books and probably some other fees), if you apply in the next 24 hours or so : D
https://mba.hauniv.edu/get-an-mba-your-w...vSU8DPpkf8

I am working on an ENEB MBA. A few other folks here have done it or are in the process. Under $300.

UT Permian Basin has an MBA you can do online, for about $12500. It was top of my list (and under $10k) when I was last looking at u.S.A. programs.

[eLearner]

UoPeople is only Nationally Accredited. For employment purposes within the US, this probably won't be an issue in most circumstances. But it could put a damper on things if you decide, for whatever reason, that you want to get a Doctorate. And, if you move abroad or live abroad, a NA Master's might not be considered a "real" degree in some countries. If none of these apply to you, UoPeople is certainly one of the more affordable options.

California Coast University: same thing. Nationally accredited. Also, if you Google California Coast University, some of the top results are about it being a diploma mill. Is it? I don't know. But a cursory look by an employer would lead them to that impression. Although cheap, I would avoid CCU for this reason.

Manipal University: Indian degrees don't have the best reputation in some circles. However, a cursory Google search (again, of the sort that an employer might do) turns up nothing untoward about the university on the first page.

Of the three, I would personally choose Manipal.

When you say "only" it gives the impression that national accreditors are inferior in quality, but that has never been proven. What has been proven is that degrees from nationally accredited schools have had lower utility to varying levels. But I continue to question the reason for that because the U.S. Department of Education and CHEA both give the nod to national accreditors the same as regional accreditors, and because the USDE has dropped the distinction between the two citing that it no longer makes sense given that they don't and never have hierarchized one over the other:

https://sacscoc.org/app/uploads/2020/03/....26.19.pdf

Losing the distinction, I feel, was long overdue. The gap has narrowed considerably in the last decade to such an extent that the highest levels of programmatic accreditation--which is a prerequisite to entering many licensed professions--have been achieved by a number of once-designated nationally accredited schools. Dropping the distinction is beneficial to students and an overall smart move toward doing what we should've been doing all along: judging each school individually based on its own merits (the way we judge every other type of organization) instead of blanketly based on accreditation terms.

As for California Coast, they had some pretty public issues a long time ago during their unaccredited past and not since becoming accredited. They are certainly not a diploma mill as they don't sell degrees for a fee with the requirement of little or no coursework. The more appropriate question is, are they substandard? I doubt it, but there is no proof that they are so I err on the side of saying no.

[eLearner]

I say "only" because there are a handful of instances where it could matter. As I said in my post, if none of those apply then go right ahead and get a NA degree. They do tend to be less expensive degrees, after all, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Also, I am not saying that CCU is a diploma mill NOW. What I am saying that an employer doing a quick internet search could easily get that impression. The top results were about how it is still a diploma mill and a scam. A potential employer isn't going to do the research to find out if the top results are accurate or not. They'll just trash your resume and move on to the next applicant.

I've seen a number of schools from TRACS and DEAC that have cheaper tuition than the average RA school, but I've also been surprised at how often I've seen NA schools have comparable or higher tuition than many RA schools. IIRC, they were mostly ACICS schools.

About CCU, fair enough. Only because you said "some of the top results are about it being a diploma mill. Is it? I don't know" I just wanted to remove any possible doubt about that for passersby.

[monchevy]

I say "only" because there are a handful of instances where it could matter. As I said in my post, if none of those apply then go right ahead and get a NA degree. They do tend to be less expensive degrees, after all, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Also, I am not saying that CCU is a diploma mill NOW. What I am saying that an employer doing a quick internet search could easily get that impression. The top results were about how it is still a diploma mill and a scam. A potential employer isn't going to do the research to find out if the top results are accurate or not. They'll just trash your resume and move on to the next applicant.

To be honest, "University of the People" would be the first CV on my trash heap as a hirer. I wouldn't even bother doing a search. The name alone would be enough to not take it seriously. They really made a huge marketing mistake by naming it that. 

I just did a Google search for CCU, and 5 pages in, still hadn't seen a single negative result. 

[rachel83az]

Interesting. They do customize your results so maybe there's something in my search history that triggered it? I didn't search for "diploma mill" but this was actually the first result: https://www.gradreports.com/colleges/cal...ity?page=3 The review by Kitty Bachs was the one that was front and center in the results summary. There were others, too, but I didn't click on those.

[monchevy]

Interesting. They do customize your results so maybe there's something in my search history that triggered it? I didn't search for "diploma mill" but this was actually the first result: https://www.gradreports.com/colleges/cal...ity?page=3  The review by Kitty Bachs was the one that was front and center in the results summary. There were others, too, but I didn't click on those.

Bizarre. Grad Reports is the third result I see (after the ad from the school itself), and it shows that CCU's score is 4.4/5. When I click on it, I am taken to page 3 for some reason, then have to scroll to see her review, and it's the only negative one. But who knows with reviews.

For me, I would probably chance it if I just needed a check-the-box master's at my job. It is at least legitimately accredited. But if I needed a master's for a specific profession that requires licensing, where my degree would be scrutinized, I'd stick with RA.

[ss20ts]

Before getting excited about UofP, read up on them on here. Many people have tried it and aren't fond of it for a variety of reasons. I've worked in HR and no way would I even interview someone who has a degree from a place called University of the People. It sounds like a fake school. It's national accredited and quite honestly, I'm not even sure how they got that far. Their professors are volunteers not on staff. Students grade each other's assignments.

If you want an MBA, then you need to put the time into a quality MBA program. Why discount WGU? Plenty of people have families, jobs, and lives and still complete their master's degree at WGU in a year which is 2 terms. It's called making the time and setting a schedule which is what you have to do for any degree at any school.

LSU Shreveport has an MBA program for under $13,000. Lots of schools have programs like this, you just have to do the research. Far more people have heard of LSU and WGU than UofP. LSA and WGU are also regionally accredited. The accreditation may be a factor depending where you live and what jobs you're looking for now and in the future. Yes, there are actually jobs out there where accreditation matters. Like it or not, disagree or not, that's how it is.  

[monchevy]

Before getting excited about UofP, read up on them on here. Many people have tried it and aren't fond of it for a variety of reasons. I've worked in HR and no way would I even interview someone who has a degree from a place called University of the People. It sounds like a fake school. It's national accredited and quite honestly, I'm not even sure how they got that far. Their professors are volunteers not on staff. Students grade each other's assignments.

If you want an MBA, then you need to put the time into a quality MBA program. Why discount WGU? Plenty of people have families, jobs, and lives and still complete their master's degree at WGU in a year which is 2 terms. It's called making the time and setting a schedule which is what you have to do for any degree at any school.

Seriously! The basic premise of being in a class is that you're all learning the subject. How does it make sense for people who don't excel in the subject to be grading you, especially if your first language is English and theirs isn't?

I still don't know what they were thinking with that name.