Thomas Frey is Google’s top rated futurist speaker and the Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute in Colorado. He has been called the Father of Invention and the Dean of Futurists. Frey has predicted a wave of knowledge, changing education as it currently is known, that will come with only nominal fees or no price tags attached.
How will the educational system change? Frey sees the beginnings in courseware already available free at major universities. Grants will pay a key role to help with initial steps. Bill Gates and other philanthropists are currently donating large grants to education. Is this happening as Frey predicted? Yes.
University of the People
Shai Reshef is an Israeli entrepreneur proceeding with plans to start an online university based in Pasadina, California. Online universities are not new but Reshef’s university will not resemble the University of Phoenix. Reshef plans on designing the Star Trek version of online colleges.
University of the People Admission Criteria
What are the requirements for the University of the People?
- High school diploma
- Internet access
- Fluency in English
If students will not be paying tuition, how will the system function? It takes money to run a university online, in spite of having no building and no professors. Answer: Students will pay a nominal enrollment fee of $15-50 and exam fees from $10-100. Students from countries with poor economies will pay less. Once the university has 10,000 students enrolled, it will be able to sustain itself.
Reshef’s "University of the People" Rationale
Shai Reshef believes that students of the world should be able to receive a college education even if they reside in locations in the world that are geographically challenging or in poverty. He will take information from universities such as MIT and use social networking to offer degrees. Students would be given lecture material to discuss online. Weekly assignments and quizes would be given to test for knowledge. Professors will help Reshef formulate classes and quizes. Initially, students will only receive bachelor’s degrees in business administration and computer science. Additional majors will be added as enrollment increases.
No College Accreditation for "University of the People"
Skeptics are not very hopeful about accreditation for University of the People. John Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that works to integrate online learning into the higher education mainstream, called the proposed university’s chances of accreditation "slim to none." He said accreditation is a thorough process that examines an institution in many areas, including its curriculum and faculty. [1] The University of the People would have no faculty.
Shai Reshef has the vision to create the first global, online, peer-to-peer university in the world. Other similar models have failed but the university will open its doors in September of 2009 with 300 students. It has the potential to be the first world-wide university joining all continents.
Related Articles: Paradigm Shift in Learning
[1] Raja Abdulrahim, "Pasadena-based plan for online university draws interest, skepticism," Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2009
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