Spain’s Degrees Information

The election of an MBA or a Master’s degree is a decision that requires an important evaluation, in which different factors related to the institution and the program must be put in value, such as the methodology, the teaching staff, the study plan, the duration, employability, rankings, accreditations and, of course, the degree.

What is an own degree and what is an official degree?

In Spain there are two types of degrees, own degree and official qualification. They are both regulated by the Organic Law 6/2001, of the 21st of December, of Universities of Spain, protected by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), both are completely valid and legitimate, university and higher education, although with different purposes in the professional field. The law certifies the orientation of the own degree towards the practical and profesional specialitzation of knowledge and skills. Additionally, the law protects the official qualification granted by the universities and approved by ANECA or equivalent bodies at the regional level.

The official and the own degree provide specialized and multidisciplinary training. Both degrees are globally recognized in the field of private business and either of the two gives the possibility of carrying out curricular or non-curricular internships. The homologation of both degrees in the different countries depends exclusively on local educational laws.

At the European Higher Education Area (EHEA):

- An own degree is granted by publics and privates educational institutions. The law accredits the orientation of this degree towards the practical and profesional specialization of knowledge and skills on a specific discipline. The own degree, ensured by universities or schools, is created under the criteria of the institution that imparts them: depending on the demand for specialization, the proposals of the teaching staff... Additionally, it is important to note that the Universities that offer own degrees are regulated by the council of the institution and the university laws in force. The presence of an own degree; also called university graduate professional qualification, in a ranking is a confirmation of to its globally recognized quality.
- An official degree is an accreditation, granted by publics and privates institutions that certifies, under the regulation of the Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación (ANECA) (Spanish National Agency for Quality Assesment and Accreditation) or equivalent bodies at the regional level, the acquisition of the theoretical and practical concepts and of academic specialization on a certain subject. The public institutions, that endorse the official degrees, regulate the programs according to the criteria established by the corresponding state or regional bodies with their own approval of lecturing and the stamp of the Spanish state, in order to offer it to the students.

Bandas del Claustro Docente de OBS Business School

Differences between an own degree and an official degree

There are numerous differences between both degrees, but the main one is the nature of the programs. An official program provides the student with an academic and theoretical vision, while an own program provides a business and exclusively practical orientation:

The agility and flexibility of updating the programs depends on the typology of the degree that the program gives. In the case of the official one, to make changes to the content it requires long approval periods, because these have to be approved by ANECA. On the other hand, in the own degree, the content update is faster and more effective because it only depends of the criteria and validations of the institution.
The profile of the teaching staff also shows differences. The teachers of own masters are generally active professionals that know the market, and train their students using their own work experience and real cases, so they can apply their knowledge and face the challenges in work from day one. Otherwise, the teachers of official masters are professors or doctors who have developed their professional career with a public university education and offer a more theoretical and academic teaching.
The employability or the work trajectory is a factor to take into account when you are evaluating all the variables, and depending on the professional goals that the student has he must make a choice between both titles. If the student wants to develop his professional career in the public sector or continue his doctoral studies, the degree that better suits to his objectives is the official one. However, if the student wishes to progress in the private field, the own degree will grant him a greater specialization, due to the close connection of the institutions with the business world and the knowledge of their needs. That is why private companies recognize these degrees for the prestige, practicality and recognition of the program and the institution.

Why is OBS offering a double own degree?

Since our creation, we have opted for a double own degree for the benefit of our students because of the following reasons:

OBS Business School offers a double own degree, because our programs are cosigned and certified by our Academic Partners, the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) or the Universidad Internacional de la Empresa (UNIE).
The programs are aimed at training and updating knowledge, skills, and competencies in management while students live in a global international experience.
The academic approach focuses in teaching the student how to get along in a global work environment, rather than the consideration of the contents by local administrations, which each one exercises in its field of competence and that’s because is very different in each country.
We are committed to an election of expert teaching staff in transversal, new and emerging fields, without quotas for the presence of doctors, in the same way that we stand up for the academic freedom.
The pedagogical and communication model are based on the practice to bring the current challenges of companies closer to the students.
The teachers are professional practitioners, active and prestigious, who combine teaching with their own professional activity.
The student profile who wants to develop and grow in his professional field demands to be up-to-date with the latest trends. For this reason, the graduates have the support of the Alumni networks that provides them help in the search for professional opportunities.
In each edition, the update of the programs content is carried out in a rigorous way by the teaching staff.

If you are an international student and you want to find out about the processes of validation, homologation, equivalence or recognition of foreign titles in general and Europeans in particular, we recommend you to contact the relevant responsible educational bodies in your country or the corresponding embassies.

In short, from OBS we are committed to our own degree or professionalizing university postgraduate that, together with other characteristics of our academic proposal, has allowed us since the beginning to have a clear professionalizing and international vocation to train our students from more than 80 countries with guarantees.