Hellenic American University MBA: Overview of $3K RA MBA

[collegechick]

They've accepted me.  However, they are not associated with the National Student Clearing House transcript verification service.  I discovered this when trying to submit my official transcripts.  The dean just wrote me and confirmed they are not registered with them.  This is red flag for me.  On top of not being able to find many reviews about this school.  Not sure I'm going to proceed with this program.

They are a really small school, and in the US only really teach the MBA program and also will do degree completion in some cases is what I understand.

The Athens campus is where their focus is, no question.

Keep in mind that regardless of them being small, they are RA and legit, the MBA program at the price offered is truly something that you will be very unlikely to find at any RA school. If you look at their RA accreditation, you will note they are listed under International, not US based. That doesn't make them any less RA but does go to what their focus and model is.

I do believe that anybody looking for "brand recognition" or extensive networking for career boost would most likely pass on this offer. If there is the intention of working for a fortune 500 that requires programmatic accreditation, or intends to teach at the college level, pursue a DBA at an AACSB or ACBSP school then they may be best served to pass at HAU.

If however, you feel that the material learnt in a MBA can help your professional aspirations/ability, work for government or the majority of employers that don't care beyond RA accreditation and the format works for you, passing up on this would not make sense at all IMHO.

The closest to this program that would suit my needs is WGU, and only then if I accelerate, which is entirely possible. I will say that WGU's success and the volume of people that have accelerated thru means that any picky employer (or just a snob) is likely to not hold WGU in high esteem and may look more favorably on HAU, offset a bit by WGU being ACBSP. My thoughts is second tier business school programmatic accreditation  only means "not as good" to many, and thus RA "only" is not terribly disadvantaged.

There is also a psychological aspect to this, some (many) folks truly self actualize thru the brands they are associated with, and choosing a unknown brand that is cheaper, even if in all quantifiable aspects is equal will NEVER feel good about the purchase, if that is the case, instead of suffering buyers regret and feeling insecure forever on how others will judge you based on having a unknown brand for a degree, give it a pass. Because if you have a MBA that doesn't give you some confidence, it's wasted.

Them being a member of the clearing house costs money in system integration and set up, and it's completely an American thing and as such, given how few US based students they have, wouldn't make sense business wise, especially when they are so responsive to inquiries and quite able to confirm who has graduated their programs. Look here and punch in 50 students and 50 annual orders and see if signing up would make sense if it was your business. https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/tra...alculator/

Their small size also is why you aren't seeing reviews etc. for their US based MBA program. If you look on linkedin, you quickly see that the vast majority of their grads are in Greece and the EU.

For me, the price, syllabus and being RA is good enough, YMMV

Cerich67 thank you for the thoughtful and helpful response.  You make a lot of really great points.  I'm not a brand person or else I never would have attempted to graduate from TESU!  However, I'm a little nervous to attend such an obscure school and don't want to waste my time on a school that employers will consider laughable or disregard.  

I do wish I was attending a state school where I could network and have job placement assistance at the end.  The online format at TESU sucked.  I've even considered moving back to Texas for TX A&M's MBA program for $10k, for in-state tuition.  But I have no idea when universities are going to open back up due to Covid.  So this program does make more sense.

Also very nervous over algebra concepts in the finance and accounting courses, which I've heard others mention on another forum is required in an MBA program.  I never thought I'd go after an MBA, but I like the idea of having more job opportunities and it would be personally enriching.  Going to get a PMP cert too.  Yay!

Thanks again for your response.