opinions on SSBM DBA program?

[SergioGlad]

I've been getting calls and emails after inquiring about SSBM just to do more research about them and see if there are any scholarships to drive the cost of this degree down even further. The ACBSP program accreditation along with their membership to a couple of business program accreditors would lead some FCE companies to give it the equivalency of a regional accreditation as Validential has done so with European International University who only has as a membership with ACBSP.   The reason for this is that in order to be a member or accredited by these programmatic accreditors, you have to be regionally accredited if located here in the USA.  Schools outside of the US are not required to have this accreditation but must submit paperwork showing that they have appropriate recognition to award degrees.    If ACBSP accredits an international school,  the school could be seen as equivalent to regionally accredited in theory since they only accredit regionally accredited schools in the USA.

A lot of things to unpack here. But lets start, i am responding couple of months latter cause getting response from November/December by organizations is quite hard. And then i also forgot to reach back.

I think it is clear as of writing that "degrees" from SSBM should be avoided, but if you want a course certification or something along those lines be my guest, even an MBA should you wish for, but just know MBA does not exist throughout Europe, even from reputable institutions (public government recognised ones) getting an ECTS claim on them (let's say of 90) is hard next to impossible. Most of Europe education market looks at MBA's as expensive course certifications. And the same view point transfers over at the labor market on to CV's.

You also mentioned ACBSP, which from my corespondings with people at ACBSP (last year) i can only say that they offer no claim/accreditation for exams, studies passed. So there is no confusion we are talking about Europe and ACBSP standings. Seems to be having an ACBSP accreditation is holding no value, and i can say with 100% guarantee in EU no Ministry of Education would give permission for said degrees to pass the verification process to be usable on the labor market.

To only/best guarantee comes from the government by the respected Ministry of Education in EU, and i think for the most part in the World. (regional accreditation over in US)

I can go into details what the problems with SSBM Geneva are , but lets say nothing significantly changed since 2020 that people found out on degreeinfo, i would say things went worse for them.

As for EIU this is why it took me so long to write a replay, backchecking these claims. EIU claims that it has a license from the Ministry of Education France, which is true. But the juicy part they left out its not a license to award academic degrees. 
So you have a Thailand owned private business that is selling online "degrees".
As of writing they do hold a membership from ACBSP, not to be confused with accreditation, but they have submited for accreditation candidacy. I went back and checked with the Germans national repository for Institutions and degrees (Anabin) and i could not find anything calling itself European International University.( red flag as they come) Mind you i can find SSBM in the repository holding the "avoid at all cost" score while nothing about EIU.
People in the Ministry of Education also failed to find anything about this institution, and no one actually wanted to comment should you take or not take courses from them, i think that's up to people.

I also can not comment about the quality of education you get in these Institutions, it might be good, and it is up to the people should they want to spend their time and money on them hrug: emoji

Hi. Thanks for your reseach! I'm looking for a business school right now to complete MBA program and SSBM was on my list due to quite good programs (at least on paper) and of course the price. But after reading all the comments above I have no doubts. Although, I don't think MBA itself require too much of official accreditation (not like if it would be a medicine or lawer degree), but it would fee much better to have that regognition.

In my research I found one German privat university which looks like have all official accreditations, offer online course (which I need) and have appropriate price (around 10k €): https://www.iu.de/fernstudium/master-of-...on-master/

So far I couln't find any red flags on it, but maybe with your experience you can point on some

[rachel83az]

Hi. Thanks for your reseach! I'm looking for a business school right now to complete MBA program and SSBM was on my list due to quite good programs (at least on paper) and of course the price. But after reading all the comments above I have no doubts. Although, I don't think MBA itself require too much of official accreditation (not like if it would be a medicine or lawer degree), but it would fee much better to have that regognition.

In my research I found one German privat university which looks like have all official accreditations, offer online course (which I need) and have appropriate price (around 10k €): https://www.iu.de/fernstudium/master-of-...on-master/

So far I couln't find any red flags on it, but maybe with your experience you can point on some

IU is really unresponsive (maybe only if you're not German?). It's difficult to find anything, because their acronym is so short, but I did find this thread. Someone who wanted to get one of their Bachelor's degrees tried for months and got nowhere: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...k-required I'm not sure I would trust them for grad school.

[bjcheung77]

@SergioGlad, Welcome to the board... Are you looking at graduate programs or undergrad? Are you specifically looking at Business programs? Basically, if you're looking into programs and may want some degree planning advice, you should create a new thread by following the template and last post addendum here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[Harry101]

@SergioGlad I would stay clear out of any private business school from Switzerland who holds no accreditation AAQ (government) given that IMD got hold of AAQ (16.12.2022) it means the claims from these articles;
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/sw...s/47786510
..the part about the government to enforce the 2023 rule, must have AAQ as serious matter. Somehow i doubt they will give 10+ Private business schools from Geneva the AAQ (the visa and influx of business degrees seem not feasible to me that the Swiss would approve it for the Swiss labor market)

I do not know if this needs to be mentioned. But if you intend to use the MBA you need it to pass the verification process by the said country labor market so you can use it. The only way to achive this is if the said Institution you attended the MBA is State recognised for Higher education (not that eduQua crap that every private business school in Swiss is staking their claim). At least in EU these are the rules.

So if you want a good reputable MBA look for AAQ accredited Institutions in Swiss. (St. Gellen, Swiss Business School SBS , IMD ,University Zurich)

As for Germany and IU stay away from it. If you want to know why send an email to daad.de/en/
+ for feedback about IU: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comm...f_applied/

Sry had to edit this part; the initial post seemed to be way to doom and gloom! !
You are right when you say MBA's in Europe are kinda a grey market, i agree. You could finish and MBA from SSBM but then list it under life experience or never list it for verification, this is all double and probably up to the employeer.

[SergioGlad]

@SergioGlad I would stay clear out of any private business school from Switzerland who holds no accreditation AAQ (government) given that IMD got hold of AAQ (16.12.2022) it means the claims from these articles;
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/sw...s/47786510
..the part about the government to enforce the 2023 rule, must have AAQ as serious matter. Somehow i doubt they will give 10+ Private business schools from Geneva the AAQ (the visa and influx of business degrees seem not feasible to me that the Swiss would approve it for the Swiss labor market)

I do not know if this needs to be mentioned. But if you intend to use the MBA you need it to pass the verification process by the said country labor market so you can use it. The only way to achive this is if the said Institution you attended the MBA is State recognised for Higher education (not that eduQua crap that every private business school in Swiss is staking their claim). At least in EU these are the rules.

So if you want a good reputable MBA look for AAQ accredited Institutions in Swiss. (St. Gellen, Swiss Business School SBS , IMD ,University Zurich)

As for Germany and IU stay away from it. If you want to know why send an email to daad.de/en/
+ for feedback about IU: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comm...f_applied/

Sry had to edit this part; the initial post seemed to be way to doom and gloom! !
You are right when you say MBA's in Europe are kinda a grey market, i agree. You could finish and MBA from SSBM but then list it under life experience or never list it for verification, this is all double and probably up to the employeer.

Hey, thank for your reply.. something to consider. After reading this discussions plus couple of others I realized that Swiss option is the worst - they seams to not regulating those privat schools at all and there are a lot of scam / fake. 

Thats why I started to look at German ones, as at least there is some conrol there (alles in ordung  ). The challange I have is that I need remote education (at least partially), it should be in English and reasonable price. Those combinations I can hardly find in state UNI's, they all do their classes in german. 

If I would do any specialisation degree (engineering, law, mechanics, medicine, whatever) I would never even concider private schools. 
MBA is a bit a different story. I do not expect to learn much more from it as I already got during my 15+ years of working experience. It's just to structure a bit all the knowledge, get some new perspectives and use it in my own company that I started 1,5 years ago.. 

So, I believe that MBA is less strict in terms of the school. I agree that it should be goverment accredited (which all or most of german privat schools are). I also read about AMBA accreditation (in germany somehow only one privat school is accredited, it is GISMA). 

It is a classical dillema: Cost, Remote education, in English, State UNI. You can only pick three of that

[Harry101]

I would not discount Swiss Business School, it does hold AAQ (state accreditation), it offers Online/remote MBAs, English and from the looks of it the cost would be around 3,500€.

I will have a look on MBA's from Germany that are decent, but i would probably send in your place should you wish to daad.de/en/ they would probably guide you better than me.
I looked for the ones from Germany, here is the Update:

- so i searched under https://www.hochschulkompass.de/en/ ; and with the parameters: private, state accredited, it poped 20 results for MBA;
1.Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University
2.ESCP Europe Wirtschaftshochschule Berlin e.V.
3.ESMT European School of Management and Technology
4.Hertie School
5.Steinbeis-Hochschule Berlin
6.Jacobs University Bremen
7.DIU - Dresden International University GmbH
8.Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
9.Kühne Logistics University - Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Logistik und Unternehmensführung
10.WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
11.EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht
12.Private Universität Witten/Herdecke gGmbH

..these are my search links; https://www.hochschulkompass.de/en/highe...chaft%5D=2
I skipped couple of Law and Psyco private uni's i listed 12. From the looks of it the Frankfurt,DIU and Steinbeis seems like the best pick.

[ashkir]

On top of the fact WES or even IEE doesn’t recognize them nor does the university of Zagreb (I asked). Their dean is really rude to people on LinkedIn and issues bank wiring information versus a public school one. They immediately talk about tuition with their acceptance letters.

Stay far away from them. Far away. They’re great at marketing. Horrible place.

Their dean got mad at someone for posting an acceptance letter…

[Harry101]

On top of the fact WES or even IEE doesn’t recognize them nor does the university of Zagreb (I asked). Their dean is really rude to people on LinkedIn and issues bank wiring information versus a public school one. They immediately talk about tuition with their acceptance letters.

Stay far away from them. Far away. They’re great at marketing. Horrible place.

Their dean got mad at someone for posting an acceptance letter…

I know from a year ago when i was backchecking info from degreeinfo i found the reddit post about these Private schools in Swiss and got a hold of a contact in Croatia who told me there was a (pardon my french) huge shit show cause SSBM was telling prospects (since then they had to remove the part on the accreditation webpage that they are awarding them with Uni Zagreb) from Upgrad how they where giving out valid institutional degree's from the College of Economics in Croatia/Zagreb;

https://www.consumercomplaints.in/upgrad...t-c2852758 - one of the complaints from the students who filed a report

[dbaEnthu]

Their site now says they are ACBSP accredited and AACSB member and EduQua certified. They say ACBSP is certified by CHEA. Any further comments?

[ashkir]

wow. didn't expect that.

https://acbsp.org/members/?id=64671995

Criterion 2.1
? [2.1 b] The business unit has identified several strategic focus areas in its strategic plan to become a leading Business School in the country. The strategic plan is mission-based that focuses on innovation, global competitiveness, and socially responsive. Some of the areas of strategic focus are i) Continuous improvement and sustainability ii) Learner-centeredness iii) High impact research iv) Stakeholder relationships v)Work environment & culture vi) Visibility and vii) Innovation. The objectives, action plans, and measurements are detailed in the strategic plan. During the site visit, the team also found that the top management has recognized that the strategic directions set in the plan will lead to continuous improvement and overall development of the institution.
Categories: Approach, Deployment, Improvements
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.
Criterion 2.4
? [2.4 a] The business unit has taken steps to allocate additional funding for improvements in several areas of operation which has resulted in better and improved processes and training opportunities alongside enhanced learning experiences for all stakeholders. The management of the school is extremely supportive, believes in continuous improvement, and takes the necessary steps required to ensure addressing of necessary opportunities for improvement.
Categories: Approach, Deployment, Improvements
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.
Criterion 3.1
? [3.1.d] The business unit uses formal and informal processes and methods to seek information and respond to complaints from students and other key stakeholders. There is evidence of various surveys and methods used to collect relevant information and how to proceed with collected data. Actions are taken in a timely manner following their Quality Assurance Cycle (Figure 4). This was verified during interviews.
Categories: Approach
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.
Criterion 4.1
? [4.1.a/b] The business unit has provided a comprehensive Assessment Plan Student Learning Outcomes, describing the assessment process and program's student learning outcomes for all programs under review.
Categories: Approach
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.
Criterion 5.2
? [5.2 A] The business unit has an excellent pool of well-qualified and experienced adjunct faculty. The adjunct faculty members add value by actively being involved in curriculum development, assessment improvement process. They also play an advisory role in the full-time recruitment process.
Categories: Approach, Deployment
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.
Criterion 6.1
? [6.1.b.] The Business Unit has a variety of methods to collect input on the quality of curriculum as shown in Figure 15. The data collection approaches include both internal and external methods, which include benchmarking of reference programs.
Categories: Approach
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.
Criterion 7.1
? There is evidence that the Business Unit has key Education Support Processes to ensure student success. Examples include Library, e-SSBM Online Learning Management System (https://online.e-ssbm.com), Personal Advisor, Registration Team, Course Tutor, DBA Mentor, and Monthly course webinars to support students.
Categories: Approach
Verified: This Strength was verified on site.