More than 100,000 students now enrolled at the tuition-free University of the People – a near 150 per cent rise in a year

It’s been decades since Australian students have enjoyed tuition-free university education, but the University of the People (UoPeople) now boasts roughly 106,000 students from 200 countries around the world, with the majority from the US. The university’s cohort includes refugees fleeing civil wars, undocumented students refused financial aid, and individuals who can’t meet “exhorbitant tuition costs”, to name a few. And while the UoPeople was founded back in 2009 as the first “non-profit, tuition-free, American, accredited online university” that offers both undergraduate and postgraduate programs, enrolments have skyrocketed in the last year alone, from roughly 40,000 enrolled students to 106, 041 – a monumental increase of nearly 142 per cent. UoPeople has an admission centre in Pasadena, California, but all of its courses are delivered online. While the university does not charge tuition or enrolment fees and course materials are included for free online, it does charge a $60 application fee, as well as assessment fees of $120 and $240 at the conclusion of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, respectively. Despite the fees being nominal, a variety of scholarships are available, which aligns to the university’s mission “that no qualified student be left behind”. “University of the People was founded with the belief that education is a fundamental right for all,” UoPeople President Shai Reshef said. “We started the university so that every high school graduate, regardless of their financial, geographic, political or personal situation, can have the opportunity to earn a college degree. “We could not be prouder to serve more than 106,000 students that would never have had the opportunity to earn a college degree if it was not for UoPeople.” The underpinning belief for UoPeople, since its inception, is to provide opportunities “for those who have no other recourse for higher education". The the majority of its students fall into the “non-traditional” category, including working parents who can not afford a university education, incarcerated people, DACA students, and asylum-seekers, including around 6,000 mainly from Syria. UoPeople is also providing 1,000 scholarships to Afghan women following the Taliban’s recent takeover in Afghanistan, ensuring women can still obtain a college education online. One example of a UoPeople student is 32-year-old Chan Bath Pektek, a South Sudanese orphan who was kidnapped and forced to be a child soldier for three years. Never did he believe he would be able to gain a university education before hearing about the online university. Another is Stephanie Stump, a 31-year-old working mother from Tennessee who is raising two autistic children. “One of the main reasons students are coming to University of the People is because there is a tremendous unmet demand for affordable higher education programs that are of high quality and easily accessible online from anywhere in the world,” UoPeople President Shai Reshef said. “UNESCO estimates that by 2025 there will be nearly 100 million young people seeking seats in universities that do not exist. Our goal is to provide the opportunity to get a college education to as many people as possible.” Courses, funding and accreditation UoPeople’s chief aim is to help high school graduates “overcome financial, geographic, political, and personal constraints keeping them from collegiate studies”. It offers both associate and bachelor degrees in business administration, computer science and health science, as well as an MBA and M.Ed. program. The university collaborates with a range of Ivy league colleges in the US, including Harvard Business School Online, New York University, and the University of California Berkeley, as well as McGill University and the University of Edinburgh. UoPeople is supported by a range of foundations, including Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation. Graduates of UoPeople have found employment at such companies as Deloitte, Amazon, Apple, Pfizer, Google, Microsoft and IBM. UoPeople courses gained accreditation by the Distance Education and Training Council in the US in 2014, which was just in time for its first graduating class. Therefore, strictly speaking, UoPeople courses may not be recognised in all countries. In 2014, president of New York University and chairman of UoPeople's president's council Professor John Sexton said: “With the development of technology, we now can provide a quality higher education to able students in the United States and around the globe who, until now, did not have available to them the possibility of a college or university degree. “It’s thrilling to think that with this accreditation, more students, employers and leaders will begin to recognise the worth of a UoPeople degree.”