New Tuition-Free 'University of the People' Tries to Democratize Higher Ed

The latest experiment in peer-to-peer education kicks off next month – a new institution in which students will learn in virtual communities using free online materials and social-networking tools.

But now the venture, called University of the People, faces big questions. Among them: Can it get accreditation? And can a college that charges so little and relies so much on self-teaching retain students?

Since it was announced in January, University of the People has accumulated a pile of publicity, spurred by its populist marketing pitch as the “first nonprofit, tuition-free online university.”

“The idea is to reach the hundreds of millions of people who graduate high school, have all the ability and the right to study in an academic institution, but cannot do it either because they don’t have the money or because there aren’t enough institutions,” said Shai Reshef, an Israeli entrepreneur who founded the project. “In quite a few countries in the world, the demand is much more than the supply.”

So far the institution's reach is small: 178 students. That’s the number of first-term “freshmen” who will study business administration and computer science in the online institution, which also offers support from professors. The inaugural pupils range in age from 16 to 61. They come from 49 countries, led by the United States, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Brazil. Over all, nearly 2,000 people have applied for admission.

The California-registered institution “cannot legally promise a degree nor any accreditation,” Mr. Reshef said. It does plan to apply for accreditation.

Its idea of “free” is also slippery. The university waives fees now, Mr. Reshef said. But an education could cost between $400 and $4,000 overall in the future, he said, depending on the countries from which students come. The charges would cover exam fees.

When asked about students dropping out, Mr. Reshef expressed concern, pointing to the retention struggles of more traditional online universities.

“If people pay 30,000 U.S. dollars and still drop out, what can we expect from students that pay nothing?" said Mr. Reshef, who invested $1-million in his online start-up. “We really hope that we will be able to make the social networking the thing that will make them stay together and stick with us, but yeah, you’re right, that’s the No. 1 challenge that we have." He said he did expect that the university would have a high dropout rate.

University of the People students will be clustered into groups of 15 to 20 people all taking the same online course. They’ll be expected to digest course materials and discuss them based on prepared questions. If they have problems their classmates can’t answer, they can click into a forum where they can seek help from volunteer professors and others – and even request an “office hour.”

John R. Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, a group that supports online learning, expressed some “disquiet” about the concept behind University of the People and similar projects, which include Peer 2 Peer University. Some fraction of people can probably learn by themselves, he said. Many cannot.

“There’s a pretty significant fraction of the population that learns better with instructor-led kinds of activities than purely self-paced activities,” he said.

He added: “Can you have a group of students who know nothing about quantum mechanics and have them work in a group and discuss it and learn a lot? I think it’s going to be difficult. It would have been darn hard to get a group of neophytes together and discuss it and understand what the heck is going on in quantum mechanics.”

Comments

1. kchristi - August 26, 2009 at 05:24 pm

I wonder if the institution's free English classes will teach the difference between the verbs "wave" and "waive."

2. 12076771 - August 26, 2009 at 05:48 pm

Thanks for the catch. I've fixed the item. -- Lawrence Biemiller

3. mselliem - August 26, 2009 at 06:52 pm

I believe the idea of offering a free education to anyone who wants to improve his- or herself is marvelous. Post-secondary education has a lot of adapting to do to meet the needs of today's youth and adults interested in pursuing higher education; among those adaptations is allowing students to actually study on their own time schedules. Online universities and programs expect students to be part of a cohort (very traditional), and so are not truly allowing students to work at a pace conducive to their lifestyles--particularly if the lifestyle involves a full-time job, multiple jobs, care of family members, health problems, and/or a host of other life events that can cause a student to need to take a significant amount of time from his/her studies. Our ideas of what constitutes a post-secondary education are far too linear for today's economic turmoil, de facto globalization, and ecological trends. I know little about the program discussed above, but strongly wish for the idea to succeed.

And if I've misspelled or mistyped a word--or used faulty grammar--I hope that netiquette prevents someone from publicly pointing that out.

4. shc5578 - August 26, 2009 at 11:07 pm

What Shai is doing is simply remarkable - peer-to-peer learning is the oldest form of learning and will soon be widely accepted by academia once acadmics understand their new role in this model. Here is the best article I've seen to date on our EDUpunk movement - there is no going back in time now:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html

Only correction I would add is that I founded the very first zero-tuition university: www.TechUofA.com - other than that minor point it's all good stuff!

Steve Cooper

5. y_lulat - August 27, 2009 at 03:14 am

In the old days they used to have something called "education by correspondence." In one sense this is a version of it.

6. karl_allen - August 27, 2009 at 03:36 am

I have worked as an educator for 20 years and have seen pedagogical trends come and go. While the area of online learning is still in its incipience, I believe that it will eventually become the standard in education.

The potential to create a global classroom through internet technology is limitless. While online learning already exists, currently, this can be very expensive. Shai's vision to offer education at a relatively low cost, is one that will see education become accessible to all, regardless of socio-economic background.

I have seen first hand that peer-to-peer learning can work. Achieving the right balance to use this form effectively can take time, but collaborative learning is a vital aspect in retaining students and motivating them to achieve.

The University of the People has created small groups of students, which will help to foster a sense of community, especially for those students studying from remote locations. They also have access to professors, who will facilitate the learning process by answering questions and sharing their expertise.

I hope the skeptics will proven wrong because the University of the People could pave the way for an education revolution.

Karl Allen

7. kevinprosser - August 27, 2009 at 03:40 am

This sounds like an exciting, brave and ambitious project. It's widely understood that one of the biggest barriers to access to higher education for many people is the cost of tuition. A great deal of talent is neglected or passed over because of this. So the University of the People should be applauded for seeking to address this problem. It's a massive task, but Shai Reshef sounds clear-sighted enough to acknowledge the challenges his new venture faces. It's easy for nay-sayers to sit on the sidelines and criticise. Harder to face the issue, seek to innovate and provide imaginative solutions. But it's a mission well worth embarking on.

8. jennylsb - August 27, 2009 at 03:52 am

I am a Spanish perzon & I am very happy to see this. In my contry we don't have this and is very good for me. I tell my frends about this program. We will register for this.

9. 11134078 - August 27, 2009 at 11:55 am

My usual caveat (or just plain fear) asserts itself here. This kind of "education" is really "training" and it may well be very good for the latter. That the former can take place in the on-line environment is somthing I seriously doubt. (And of course, you can't measure "education" or at least not until the supposedly educated individual is close to the end of life.)

10. mselliem - August 27, 2009 at 02:52 pm

Thank you, Steve Cooper, for the link to more information about the University of the People. As pointed out above, this is the way much education actually occurred. Ben Franklin, one of America's founders and revered sages, was largely self-educated.

This conversation should be extended to K-12 education institutions, especially in large urban areas. Research has clearly indicated that reading levels critically affect whether a youngster drops out of school. (Yes, parental involvement is important, too, but that helps nothing if the child cannot read.) Much of the delay in reading advancement is caused by missing school. Comedians joke about having missed school the day the teacher taught division, but students who miss early reading lessons and never receive remediation tend to fall further behind each year. For many of these students, the job of caring for a sick sibling or aged relative falls upon the individual who is not earning money. It's not that parents don't see education as important; it's that food and housing are immediate needs for family survival. Linear cohort education puts such a student at significant risk for failure. Online educational support could be used to bridge the gap caused by irregular attendance.

The idea of availability of online education for K-12 students is one I have presented to all my graduate education students for years. Recently I joined Edutopia, in hopes of contributing to the conversation on cybereducation for younger students. Right now, the concentration is on enrichment. It is my belief that the conversation needs to be extended to supplementation.