"Millions of people
all over the world
are in desperate need of us"
Shai Reshef has realized one of mankind’s oldest dreams: the University of the People offers people all over the world the possibility of higher education independent of income, status or where they live. It was founded by educational entrepreneur Shai Reshef in 2009. His tuition-free, non-profit, accredited online university, headquartered in California, is made possible by new digital technologies such as the cloud as well as his own courage to forge new paths.
TÜV SÜD
Mr. Reshef, because we are conducting this interview via Skype, I am experiencing you as your students would, that is: virtually. Does the University of the People even have a real office?
SHAI RESHEF
Yes and no. We have an office in California but all our employees around the world work from home. Our university has a virtual campus. We have a mailing address in California to which our students can mail official documents and there are people who pick these documents up and deal with the paperwork. That’s all.
TÜV SÜD
That’s very lean for an educational institution which currently has over 12,000 students.
SHAI RESHEF
Yes, but that’s also part of our concept in order to keep costs as low as possible. By the way, we expect to double our number of students in the current year. We are expanding very fast. However, unfortunately it’s still too little when millions of people all over the world are in desperate need of our virtual university.
TÜV SÜD
Which countries do your students come from?
SHAI RESHEF
The university has enrolled students from over 200 countries and territories around the world. Currently 40 percent of the students are American. There are also many people here who are excluded from traditional higher education – above all because they cannot afford the high tuition fees which average USD 15,000 a year in addition to the high cost of living. Our offer is not completely free but, at USD 100 per exam for the Bachelor’s degree and USD 200 per exam for the MBA, our costs are quite manageable.
A complete bachelor’s program is thus already possible for USD 4,000, and an MBA is possible for USD $2,400. This is of course a lot of money in Africa and several other countries, but in most cases it is still significantly cheaper than all other alternatives. And for those who cannot afford the modest fees, we have a number of scholarships in place to offset these costs. We’ve had students who’ve experienced the volcanic eruption in Haiti, the war in Rwanda and the tsunami in Asia. We currently have many migrant students, including 600 from Syria. We are very happy to be able to give them this opportunity.
TÜV SÜD
Can you remember the first student admitted to the University of the People in 2009?
SHAI RESHEF
Of course! It was a student in Kenya who wrote on our Facebook page: “Today, I’ve started my degree at the University of the People and I feel like a rich American student attending a real US university!” I remember thinking then that this alone made this project worthwhile. We had our first graduates five years later – seven students from Jordan, Syria, Nigeria and the USA. This has since risen to 500 graduates. Many of them now have a solid job, some with the best companies in the world such as IBM, Apple and Google.
Equal opportunities for people from around the world: Shai Reshef, President of University of the People, has a mission.
SHAI RESHEF
Educational entrepreneur
- Place of residence
- Pasadena, California
- Occupation
- Founder and President of the University of the People
Shai Reshef looks back on a long career in the education sector. From 1989 to 2005 he served as Chief Executive Officer and then as Chairman of a large educational institution in the USA with approximately 50,000 students a year. At the same time he set up the first online university outside the USA. In 2009 he founded the University of the People as a non-profit organization which currently has over 12,000 students from all over the world studying online.
University of the People
The purely online university is aimed at people all over the world. There are no lecture halls or attendance requirements. Students can complete the entire program online, graduating with a degree in business administration, computer science or health science. The non-profit institution with headquarters in Pasadena, California, is recognized officially as a university by the United States Department of Education. To be eligible, students have to be over 18 years old and must speak fluent English.
TÜV SÜD
What was the catalyst nine years ago that made you take this courageous step and found a non-profit university?
SHAI RESHEF
As director of an educational institution in the years before that, I set up an online program with the University of Liverpool. I realized then how effective digital technology can be: as a student you can live anywhere in the world and even have a job and still study for a university degree. Unfortunately, these courses were too expensive for most people. In my early 50s, I returned to New York with the intention of giving back to society something that would have a lasting impact. If you educate a person you can change their life, if you educate 20 people you can change the world.
TÜV SÜD
You really have forged new ground with the founding of the University of the People.
SHAI RESHEF
When we started the first courses nobody believed that it would be possible to set up a university without tuition fees if you didn’t have the support of the whole country behind you. “A university with volunteers will never work”, they all said. Many people were also skeptical as to whether a university that was solely online would work out. In the meantime, nearly all universities now also offer online courses and we were therefore forerunners of a kind.
TÜV SÜD
When did you realize that your idea would succeed?
SHAI RESHEF
A friend told me that there were professors who would offer their help to students online free of charge – which I couldn’t believe at first. At the same time open source software and cloud technology was available so all I had to do was to bring it all together.
By the way, I first introduced my concept for the University of the People at a conference in Munich in 2009 and on the following day the New York Times published a long article about it. One day after that I received hundreds of emails from professors who thought the idea was great and offered their help. Since then I have been surprised anew every day by how much goodwill there is in the world. In the meantime, about 6,000 professors, some from highly-renowned universities such as Oxford, Berkeley and New York University, are involved with the project on a voluntary basis.
TÜV SÜD
How does the University of the People work technically?
SHAI RESHEF
We are 100 percent cloud-based, all our applications operate from there. This makes our system, in combination with automated processes, very cost-effective and also allows us to grow quickly at any time. We rely on the largest and most trustworthy cloud service providers. Our teaching materials are available as open educational resources and are therefore free of charge for our students. We also use the free learning management system Moodle where students can upload their work, communicate with their course instructor and network with fellow students.
TÜV SÜD
Did you ever worry about failing? After all you had a well-paid job before giving it up.
SHAI RESHEF
When you start such a project with complete conviction you don’t think of the risks. You only think about why you want to do it and what you need to do it. I had no idea how much help I could rely on from others.
I also didn’t know how the students would feel about the idea. I am very happy that the University of the People is so successful today. Now we have to grow even more to show the world that it is possible to open access to quality, affordable higher education for many individuals. That is our mission.
