University of the People

Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef has launched the University of the People. Under the auspices of the U.N.’s Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID), the University of the People offers tuition-free education to anyone able to connect via the internet in two programs, Business Administration and Computer Science. At the moment the institution does not grant degrees, although it is seeking accreditation.

The somewhat tenuous connection to law — and thus to Slaw — lies in the fact that a number of the University’s advisors are lawyers: Jack M. Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School; Daniel Greenwood teaches at Hofstra University School of Law; and Ryan Craig is a lawyer involved in education.

The University of the People currently has gained some 200 students within two weeks of its opening, and aims to have an enrolment of 15,000.