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Education

World’s first tuition-free online university opens

By Kelly Ng | 8 June 2009

The United Nations (UN) has launched the world’s first tuition-free, online university.

The Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID), a UN department that aims to reduce poverty by promoting the use of information and communications technology (ICT), wants to make higher education available more accessible to people who cannot afford rising tuition fees, or have problems travelling to the nearest college.

To date, US$1 million has been invested in the launch of the ‘University of the People’ - but US$5 million more is needed to get the project off the ground. Founder and President Reshef Shai says that for the university to be self-sustaining, 15,000 students will need to enroll.

The university is not entirely free: students will be charged a US$15-$50 admission fee, depending on the wealth of their home country. For each online test, students need to pay between US$10 and US$100. All learning materials are available free online.

Two hundred students from 52 countries have registered since admission opened two weeks ago. The first cycle will be capped at 300 students, but the university forecasts tens of thousands of students to enrol within the first five years of operation.

“The University of the People will be able to effectively function on a limited budget without sacrificing quality of education,” Reshef said. “Embracing collaborative and open-source e-learning makes the best use of a student body from around the world while limiting operating costs.”

“Thanks to the open-source movement, there is now a strong pool of free course materials and the university can draw from that database, which includes materials from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice University, and Waseda University.

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