Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica, also known as UNEM or Business University of Costa Rica, is a private university in the city of

San José, Costa Rica San José (; meaning "Saint Joseph") is the capital city, capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and the capital of San José Province. It is in the center of the country, in the mid-west of the Costa Rican Central Valley, Central Valley, wi ...

. It is approved by the Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada, the national council of higher education of Costa Rica,Lista de Universidades Privadas aprobadas por el CONESUP
(in Spanish). Ministerio de Educación Pública: Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada (national council of higher education). Accessed October 2014. to award

undergraduate degree An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher ed ...

s in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

and

business administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...

, and

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

s in business administration.Nombre Universidad: 38 - Empresarial de Costa Rica
(in Spanish). Ministerio de Educación Pública: Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada (national council of higher education). Accessed October 2014. The degree programs offered by UNEM are not among those accredited by the Sistema Nacional de Acreditación de la Educación Superior (SINAES), the national accreditation agency of Costa Rica.Instituciones miembros del SINAES
(in Spanish). Sistema Nacional de Acreditación de la Educación Superior. Accessed December 2014. SINAES offers a voluntary accreditation process to Costa Rican Universities and accredits degree programs rather than universities. Nineteen of the fifty-eight Costa Rican universities are accredited by SINAES. UNEM is authorized by the Asesoria Legal del Ministerio de Educación No. ATJ-167-CONESUP to operate internationally, to offer international programs, and to grant bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees with agreements with foreign universities In 2013 the university was described by ''

The Costa Rica Star ''The Costa Rica Star'' is an English-language news publication that has been online since late 2011. As of 2014, the focus of this website was to cater to the English-speaking expatriate population in Costa Rica, particularly those living in t ...

'' as "infamous" for its involvement in several

diploma mill A diploma mill or degree mill is a business that sells illegitimate diplomas or academic degrees, respectively. The term ''diploma mill'' is also used pejoratively to describe any educational institution with low standards for admission and gradua ...

allegations, in cases where students paid to receive degrees without following a course of study.Jaime Lopez (12 August 2013)
Quality of Education and Cost of Tuition Increase in Costa Rica: Sham Universities
''The Costa Rica Star''. Accessed December 2014. The university has awarded

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degrees to people in Germany and the United States. A 2008 investigation by ''

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' failed to find any legitimate campus or professors associated with UNEM.

History

UNEM was founded in 1992 as an international graduate school, and acquired its present name and status in 1997.Business University of Costa Rica
International Association of Universities: Worldwide Database of Higher Education Institutions, Systems and Credentials. Accessed October 2014. The university reported no graduates in 2007, and enrolled no students in 2010; it may be inactive.Silvia P. Castro (2010)
Costa Rican higher education, its universities and students
. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Accessed December 2014.

Hun Sen Samdech Hun Sen (; , Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: ; born 5 August 1952) is a Cambodian politician and former military officer who currently serves as the List of presidents of the Senate (Cambodia), president of the Senate. He previous ...

, the

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

n prime minister, was made an "Honorary Professor of Diplomatic and International Relations" in July 2008.Biography of Hun Sen
/ref> Also in 2008,

Yahya Jammeh Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh (born 25 May 1965) is a Gambian politician and former soldier, who served as President of the Gambia from 1996 to 2017. He was the Chairman of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) from 1994 ...

, president of

The Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

, was awarded an Universidad Empresarial honorary professorship in traditional medicine by the International Parliament for Safety and Peace, a private Italian organisation.Office of the Gambian President (19 November 2008)
Officials of International Parliament for Safety and Peace Present Three International Awards to President Jammeh
State House, Republic of the Gambia. Accessed February 2015.

Rankings

Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica was not among the five hundred top universities world-wide in the ''Times Higher Education'' World University Rankings for 2014–15,World University Rankings 2014-2015
Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Accessed February 2015. nor among the top five hundred in the Shanghai

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...

for 2014.Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014
Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Accessed February 2015. It was not among the eight hundred universities in the

QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...

for 2014,QS World University Rankings 2014/15
QS Quacquarelli Symonds. Accessed February 2015. nor is it among the thirteen Costa Rican universities listed by Quacquarelli Symonds.All Results
QS Quacquarelli Symonds. Accessed February 2015. In the 2012 Classbase rating of web presence, it was not among the top one hundred universities in Latin America;Top 100 Universities in Latin America
Foreign Credits Inc. Accessed February 2015. it was rated eleventh of the thirteen universities listed for Costa Rica.Universities in Costa Rica
Foreign Credits Inc. Accessed February 2015.

References

{{authority control Universities in Costa Rica