Israeli entrepreneur, Shai Reshef, plans to combine the world’s open source educational material and create the world’s first free global university*.
“The open-source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free,” Mr. Reshef said. “We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.”
Reshef plans on starting things small. Starting this fall, 300 students will enroll in bachelor’s degrees in business administration and computer science.
*Free as in open source, not free as in beer. However, it doesn’t look like it will be particularly expensive. From the article: “students would pay only nominal fees for enrollment ($15 to $50) and exams ($10 to $100), with students from poorer countries paying the lower fees and those from richer countries paying the higher ones.”