After years of developing for-profit higher-education companies specializing in online technologies, a couple of years ago I started the nonprofit University of the People to offer tuition-free, easily accessible online college courses in business and computer science.
We charge nominal processing fees of $10 to $100, depending on the income levels of the 120 countries where our 1,200 students live. We keep software platforms basic, so that whether students are doing their coursework at an Internet cafe in Indonesia, at a nonprofit computer center in Haiti, or on a no-frills cellphone in Zambia, they can do their readings and finish their assignments with minimal bandwidth, reception, and hassle. We’ve done this on a budget of several million dollars with the help of volunteer professors. And we hope to expand our grant support, our enrollment, and our course offerings.
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We’re well aware that what we’re delivering, compared with what’s needed, is just a drop in the bucket. And if we serve as a catalyst and perhaps a model for other institutions to offer similar opportunities, or help support them, that might be the most important contribution we can make. So take my business plan, please!
At an ever-faster pace, the world is moving toward globalized, knowledge-based economies. Tertiary education—not just elementary and secondary—is critically important for economic growth. We need to invest in higher education that’s accessible and affordable across socioeconomic strata.
President Obama recognized that it’s in the United States’ interest to have universal educational access for all qualified students. However, traditional colleges are not set up to efficiently juggle places and prices to provide education that’s scalable and affordable. Conventional wisdom has been that democratizing access is a pipe dream. But with rapidly evolving technologies, it’s not.
Don’t get me wrong. Most elite institutions should remain elite. Top research universities lead society and should probably continue to serve only a limited number of students. But other colleges and universities, the vast majority of them, can provide other options. College access should be a basic right—not only to make our promise of equal opportunity a reality, but also to enable society to profit from, instead of wasting, the talents, hard work, innovation, and productivity of the young people who are denied access today.
And existing bricks-and-mortar colleges will benefit from breaking down barriers to access. Under current structures, even if those colleges were to accept the ideal of accessibility, they wouldn’t be able to to absorb the corresponding influx of students. To increase the proportion of students in the United States higher-education system from the current 70 percent of high-school graduates to 100 percent, as President Obama urges, would require close to a 50-percent increase in capacity.
Under traditional models, that would mean some 50 percent more buildings, 50 percent more classroom seats, 50 percent more faculty, 50 percent more dorm rooms, and 50 percent more administrative positions. Moreover, costs would have to drop radically. Few traditional colleges could carry out such growth while simultaneously slashing tuition. Nor can we expect taxpayers to bear the costs of such explosive growth within the traditional educational model.
Fortunately, there is a sustainable, adaptable solution—the one the University of the People is modeling. Using open-source technology, open educational resources, peer-to-peer learning, and volunteer professors vastly decreases costs. With the possible exception of the volunteer professors, all of its components can be adopted within traditional institutions to accommodate more students at vastly lower costs.
Integration of at least some parts of our model would be realistic and inexpensive. But if traditional colleges find it difficult to assimilate such methods into existing curricula, they should consider supporting such programs that do what they cannot.
So far, only a few colleges have embraced such projects. The most noteworthy pioneer is New York University, which entered into a partnership with us to consider bright University of the People students for transfer to NYU—combining the benefits of our program’s far-reaching access with NYU’s extraordinary quality.
New York University shouldn’t be the exception, though. Traditional colleges will better fulfill their mission if they assist open-door institutions, because:
- Equal educational access increases the level of knowledge in society and benefits everyone.
- Cheaper alternatives for those who cannot afford high prices will make it easier for traditional research universities and other colleges to continue to charge more for those students who can afford them.
- And cooperating traditional colleges can identify highly talented students who otherwise might be overlooked.
Even if they can’t throw their online doors wide open, colleges can, and should, stand in solidarity with institutions that do, such as the University of the People. President Obama’s vision of college for all is beautiful. With a little boldness and innovation, we can make it a splendid reality.
