Weekly Program:  An Ultra-Low-Cost-College Degree

 
At the online University of the People, anyone with a high school diploma can take classes toward a degree in business administration or computer science — without standard tuition fees (though exams cost money). Founder Shai Reshef hopes that higher education is changing "from being a privilege for the few to a basic right, affordable and accessible for all."

Why you should listen

Reshef is the president of University of the People, an online school that offers tuition-free academic degrees in computer science, business administration and health studies (and MBA) to students across the globe. The university is partnered with Yale Law School for research and NYU and University of California Berkeley to accept top students. It's accredited in the U.S. and has admitted thousands of students from more than 180 countries. Wired magazine has included Reshef in its list of "50 People Changing the World" while Foreign Policy named him a "Top Global Thinker." Now Reshef wants to contribute to addressing the refugee crisis. "Education is a major factor in solving this global challenge," he says. UoPeople is taking at least 500 Syrian refugees as students with full scholarship. Before founding UoPeople, Reshef chaired KIT eLearning, the first online university in Europe.

What others say

“His audacious goal is nothing less than to change how the world learns.” — Foreign Policy, November 26, 2012