"The provost is a volunteer, the CFO is a volunteer, the deans are volunteers, the instructors are volunteers," says Reshef. As president, he doesn't draw a salary either.

It's vision is to make higher education available to everybody.

Reshef is continually amazed by the determination of his students.

"A couple weeks ago I got an email from an Eritrean refugee in Turkey. And he said: 'I'm walking on the streets looking for Wi-Fi so I can resume my studies and I've found one'."

No-one should think that, just because there are no tuition fees, the University of the People is an easy option. It's high-level accreditation in the United States – with the Distance Education and Training Council – and completing a bachelor degree takes four years of full-time study.

Unlike most universities which have long summer breaks, the University of the People has none. It has five academic terms a year, each 10 weeks long, with nine weeks of study and one of recuperation. Full-time students will complete two units a term, or 10 a year, and 40 units are required for a degree.

Classes are small, only about 20 students, and each week they get a package of lecture notes, required reading, homework, an assignment and a discussion question to which they post responses online. Because students are usually located around the world the discussion thread is continually updated.

And a full-time course load needs 15 to 20 hours a week of study.


Filling jobs at Amazon, Google and IBM

"It's really demanding and you need self-discipline and motivation," says Reshef. "But if you do it and you like it, it's really satisfying. You have friends all over the world."

There are some costs. The fee for sitting the assessment at the end of each 10-week unit is $US100 ($135). That comes to $US4000 ($5600) for a bachelor degree but the university offers many scholarships which reduce or remove this cost for needy students.

Just over one-third of the university's 6000 students are in the US. The others are spread around the world with many in Africa, the Middle East and about 100 in Australia. The university's course software is designed to work on low-speed internet as that is all that is available in many of the places where the students live.

So far 300 students have graduated. "We need a few more years to really evaluate how well they are doing, so far it looks very promising," says Reshef. He says there are University of the People graduates working at IBM, Google and Amazon.

"We want to create well-rounded human beings, we want to open their minds, we want to teach them to develop critical thinking and make them open to other cultures and other ways of thinking," he says.

Students also earn other study opportunities. Yale, Berkeley and New York University will accept University of the People qualifications to enter their courses.

Reshef seed-funded the university from his own entrepreneurship. His former business, K.I.T. eLearning, ran online degree courses with the University of Liverpool and, in 2004, he sold it to the US for-profit university chain Laureate.


He put $1 million into founding the University of the People and raised another $6 million in donations. Donors include the Gates Foundation, Google and Microsoft. Now, Reshef says, he needs another $1 million to make the university sustainable.

That doesn't sound like much. "Don't tell me, tell the donors," he replies.

He also has a message for conventional universities whose costs are continually rising.

"Higher education can be accessible and affordable with high-quality," he says.

"We want to put a mirror in front of universities and say 'look at us'. If we can do it you can definitely do it."