Hi!

Nice knowledge-base and community you have here. I have read many posts and topics but I still couldn't find the education program that suits my priorities. Can you please recommend me one (or a few) in the fields of Business Administration or Management?

First of all, I'd like to study online, so I'm looking for a distant learning program on the doctorate level. I'm from Eastern Europe so programs without residency are strongly preferred, but once-twice visits still could be feasible. I'm not fooled by 'life experience' degrees so I'm definitely not going after such diploma, but an accelerated pace (maximum 2 years) would be a huge advantage, as long as the university is accredited by some honorable body. I'm not an expert on such accreditation agencies so whatever college/university you recommend I trust that it's no diploma mill. The last criterion is the price. Unfortunately I cannot afford a US online DBA of 10.000-40.000 $ based on my wage level. So I would be perfectly satisfied with an affordable online DBA /PhD from a recognized university in India, Hongkong, Thailand, South Africa or any other part of the world. Certainly higher international ranking (and therefore recognition) would be a benefit among such universities, but only as long as they offer a cheap, accredited distant learning program that doesn't take more than 4 semesters.

Thanks for your kind recommendations in anticipation.

Peter

I looked at low cost international options closely when I was looking for a doctoral program for myself, and I'm not sure you're going to find one that meets all of your criteria.

You say that $10000 is out of your price range, so I think that eliminates Hong Kong.  The open university in Thailand coordinates their doctoral programs with an Australian university, and I think the decent fee rate only applies to Thai citizens.  Universities in India and South Africa might work better for you.  You mentioned rankings, the ones that make the list of the world's top 500 are in South Africa, they're the Universities of Cape Town Witwatersrand, Pretoria, and KwaZulu-Natal.  The University of South Africa has been a good solution for many, but it also has a reputation for formidable bureaucracy.  To me, any of the universities there that are members of the Association of Commonwealth Universities would be fine, so you may want to start with a list of all their universities, which you can find here.

India's Indira Gandhi National Open University was on my short list because it actively encourages international doctoral students to apply.  They've developed an informative prospectus just for people like you that you can find here.

You may also be interested in the University of Malaysia.  I ended up finding an ideal American program, but if that hadn't happened I would have looked into this one more closely.

With this sort of doctoral study, typically it's best to decide ahead of time what you want the focus of your research to be, then to find a professor who shares that research interest.  In that way, often which school you choose is secondary to finding the right professor to be your supervisor -- wherever that person is, you will be.  Do you have a sense of what you want to research?

Also, these programs aren't online, as such.  They just consist entirely of research you conduct that is supervised by their faculty.  You want to find faculty members who don't mind supervising distant students by email or on the phone.  Some will be willing to do this, others will not.

The thing is, you can find probably find something inexpensive that you can do as an external student, but it will be very challenging for you to finish in just two years.  That's not very long.

Also, out of curiosity, are you not considering universities in Europe?  If not, why not?

-=Steve=-

Thank you for all your quick responses and valuable links.

The University of Malaya seems interesting, but - as Steve mentioned - the program isn't online from the classical point of view. I've read many good reviews and opinions about IGNOU (most of them I read here) so I will dig deeper in their offers. The South African Universities are also promising from the tuition point of view, but I might have to reconsider my priorities based on the trade-off between the cost and the duration.

 As far as the field of research goes I intend to focus my thesis on the management and transition of public companies, specializing maybe in public sector leadership or comparative privatization techniques. I hope I'll find a professor who will find the topic adequate for a PhD in Management or a DBA thesis.

Regarding European schools I have heterogeneous but mostly unpleasant experiences. It might sound awkward (maybe I should have put in other words) but they have a tendency to "give the student a final hard time" before (s)he is "released" into the real world. I know that my experiences cannot be considered representative, but as far as I've heard Easter European universities focus on making the students' life miserable rather than the joy of teaching and researching. (Does it make any sense what I'm trying to say?) Furthermore part-time PhD is less popular in my country, as most professors share the opinion that doctoral students should dedicate themselves to full-time research and teaching rather than pursuing corporate career and earn some money (which is still the only way in many Eastern European countries to establish decent standards of living).

So I decided to find a foreign university where the management/faculty had already realized that distant learning have practically minimal costs (compared to the offline education of the resident students) and are willing and able to offer flexible degree programs to international candidates. I have really no problem with universities charging higher fees to foreign students than locals as I didn't contribute to the local education system with my tax and will not help increasing their GDP when I'll be working as a PhD. So it's absolutely acceptable. But it's hard to understand why some universities charge tens of thousand of dollars if the education material is online, they correct the examinations mostly electronically, the library is often the world-wide web, so basically the only "non-renewable" resource in a distant learning program is the professors' time of supervising the research and reading the thesis. I hope my argument is no blasphemy, but there has to be several alternatives between the exclusive Swiss or American DBAs for $50.000 and the worthless life-experience diploma for $180 from a non-accredited and non-disclosed university.

 Peter

pbarany:

The University of Malaya seems interesting, but - as Steve mentioned - the program isn't online from the classical point of view. I've read many good reviews and opinions about IGNOU (most of them I read here) so I will dig deeper in their offers. The South African Universities are also promising from the tuition point of view, but I might have to reconsider my priorities based on the trade-off between the cost and the duration.

If that's your only reason not to consider the University of Malaya, then consider that the same is true of most of the South African universities.  None of these programs are "online" as such, and UNISA and IGNOU are the only ones that are explicitly by distance.  But that doesn't mean other schools might not work for you, provided that you have the right doctoral supervisor there.

As far as the field of research goes I intend to focus my thesis on the management and transition of public companies, specializing maybe in public sector leadership or comparative privatization techniques. I hope I'll find a professor who will find the topic adequate for a PhD in Management or a DBA thesis.

Yes, I'd think you could get a problem statement out of that fairly quickly.  Can you look around to see who at any of those universities might have a similar research interest?

Regarding European schools I have heterogeneous but mostly unpleasant experiences. It might sound awkward (maybe I should have put in other words) but they have a tendency to "give the student a final hard time" before (s)he is "released" into the real world. I know that my experiences cannot be considered representative, but as far as I've heard Easter European universities focus on making the students' life miserable rather than the joy of teaching and researching. (Does it make any sense what I'm trying to say?)

Yes: "It was hard for me back when I did my PhD, so it should be hard for students today too!"  It's a foolish mentality.

Furthermore part-time PhD is less popular in my country, as most professors share the opinion that doctoral students should dedicate themselves to full-time research and teaching rather than pursuing corporate career and earn some money (which is still the only way in many Eastern European countries to establish decent standards of living).

You haven't said which country is yours, but assuming you're in the EU, would the UK's Open University be out of reach for your financially?  Since they only take students from the EU I've never had cause to look at them closely, so I don't know what their fees are like, but they are well regarded, at least in the U.S. and the Commonwealth.  And as a fairly new institution they wouldn't have the same old school mentality and they obviously are friendly to part time distance learners.

But it's hard to understand why some universities charge tens of thousand of dollars if the education material is online, they correct the examinations mostly electronically, the library is often the world-wide web, so basically the only "non-renewable" resource in a distant learning program is the professors' time of supervising the research and reading the thesis.

The short answer is they do it because people will pay....

I hope my argument is no blasphemy, but there has to be several alternatives between the exclusive Swiss or American DBAs for $50.000 and the worthless life-experience diploma for $180 from a non-accredited and non-disclosed university.

Well, then you're on the right track.  IGNOU and UNISA are a good start, but I'd keep University of Malaya and the other South African schools in mind also.

-=Steve=-