Three weeks ago the United Nations announced the launch of the world’s first tuition-free online uni­ver­sity; the Uni­ver­sity of the Peo­ple.

With a high school diploma and a suf­fi­cient level of Eng­lish as entry require­ments, stu­dents from over 52 coun­tries have already enrolled.

Stu­dents will be placed in classes of 20, after which they can log on to a weekly lec­ture, dis­cuss its themes with their peers and take a test all online. There are vol­un­tary pro­fes­sors, post-graduate stu­dents and stu­dents in other classes who can also offer advice and consultation.

The only charge to stu­dents is a $15 to $50 admis­sion fee, depend­ing on their coun­try of ori­gin, and a pro­cess­ing fee for every test rang­ing from $10 to $100. For the Uni­ver­sity to sus­tain its oper­a­tion, it needs 15,000 stu­dents and $6 mil­lion, of which Mr. Reshef [the university’s founder] has donated $1 mil­lion of his own money.

This is exciting.