About UoPeople
University of the People (UoPeople) is the first non-profit, tuition-free, accredited online university. Dedicated
to opening access to higher education globally, UoPeople is designed to help qualified high school graduates
overcome financial, geographic, social, and personal constraints keeping them from collegiate studies. The
university currently offers two-year associate and four-year bachelor’s degree programs in Business
Administration, Computer Science, and Health Science as well as an MBA program.
UoPeople believes that access to higher education can promote world peace and global economic
development. As a basic right, higher education can transform the lives, not only of individuals but eventually
the entire world. UoPeople is an essential part of avoiding such a tragic missed opportunity for would-be
students.
UoPeople opened its gates in 2009, was accredited in February 2014, and enrolls over 5,000 students from
nearly 200 countries. The university is led by President Shai Reshef, an education entrepreneur with more
than 25 years of experience, and by distinguished international boards of trustees and advisors. University
leadership includes esteemed academics from Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Yale and more. UoPeople's
President’s Council is chaired by NYU President Emeritus John Sexton and includes Vice-Chancellor Emeritus
of the University of Oxford Sir Colin Lucas, Former U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, UC
Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, and Nobel Laureate Torsten N. Wiesel, among others.
UoPeople has academic partnerships with UC Berkeley, in which UoPeople associate degree holders are
eligible to apply to continue their studies toward a bachelor degree; NYU, to accept students; and with Yale
Law School ISP, for research. UoPeople is also affiliated with the UN, UNESCO, the Clinton Global Initiative and
Ashoka, among others. UoPeople's corporate partners include Microsoft, which sponsors scholarships for
African students; and Hewlett Packard (HP) which sponsors a women's scholarship. UoPeople is supported by
several foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation, Fondation Hoffmann and more. UoPeople has received the support of more than 1.2 Million
people on Facebook and has been covered by media worldwide, including the New York Times, BBC, NPR,
Times Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and President Reshef’s TED Talk, which has been viewed over 3.5
million times.
UoPeople is able to offer tuition-free education because of its use of volunteers, Open Educational Resources,
open-source Technology and peer-to-peer learning. More than 5,000 professionals have volunteered for the
university, filling key UoPeople leadership positions including University President, Provost, Academic Deans,
Course Developers, Academic Advisers and Course Instructors. UoPeople is building a sustainable new model
for higher education, in which students are only asked to pay a $100 exam processing fee at the end of each
course; for students who might find even these modest fees prohibitive, the university offers a variety of
scholarships. Generous contributions have enabled the growth of the university to date. UoPeople continues
to look for individual, corporate and foundation partners to assist in providing scholarship support for its
students with the greatest need, in order to fulfill the part of its mission that no qualified student will be left
behind for financial reasons.