Why I am excited about University of the People

I like to talk a big talk about completing college degrees without accumulating debt. Often the path is manageable but bumpy – involving a lot of details and decisions and finding ways to be frugal at every turn. That’s because most colleges and universities come with price tags that are complicated. You have tuition. You have fees. You have other fees, more fees, mandatory fees and optional fees. You have basic dorm rooms. You have nicer dorm rooms, single dorm rooms, bedrooms in apartments. Maybe utilities in the apartment too. You have meal plans. You have social activities and the occasional pizza with friends. And the list goes on.

We live in a post pandemic, highly connected world where online learning, once stigmatized, has become entirely legitimate, fully respectable, and often indistinguishable from a campus based college education. But costs vary widely, and big name schools still beckon with their assumed prestige. I once thought those names mattered, but a look around suggests otherwise. Here’s why:

1. What you study may be more important than where. Have you ever seen a job posting stating you must hold a degree in a STEM field from an Ivy League university? Job postings never reference the school.
2. Experience has always been as important as the degree for the vast majority of jobs. Networking, resume, and interview skills are pretty crucial as well. We don’t focus enough on those things as part of a career path.
3. Workers are in short supply. If you are qualified per the job posting, you are qualified.
4. With a 40 year career behind me, I can tell you the conversation about where someone went to school almost never happens, either in interviews or on the job. When it does, there is little indication anyone is really impressed with those who went somewhere “better.” Nowadays it’s just as likely that the leaders at any given company went to community colleges, regional state universities, or online schools themselves.
5. As long as a degree comes from an accredited college, it’s legitimate and it’s part of your qualifications.

Enter University of the People. (www.uopeople.edu) UOP simplifies the financial equation more than any college I have found so far. It appears to be the cheapest degree granting, accredited college I have ever found to pay fully out of pocket without any financial aid.

The short story:

1. First and foremost, it is not entirely free, but it bills itself as ultra low cost.
   
2. University of People is completely online and has an open admission policy. You sign up, you pay the application fee ($60 in March 2023) and you’re in.
   
3. It is a nonprofit. That means it is only trying to generate enough money to survive, not to make more money.
   
4. It is accredited by the DEAC which is recognized by the US Department of Education.
   
5. As of March 2023, there is a cost of $120 per undergraduate course in order to actually earn college credit (the material can be reviewed for free, but no college credit is awarded).
   
6. At the price of $120 per course, an associate’s degree could be completed for a cost of $2,460, and a bachelor’s degree for $4,860. Assuming a normal full time pace of academic progress, that’s about $100 per month.
   
7. To be clear, in all my years of watching college costs and soaring debt, this is the cheapest degree-granting college I have ever seen.
   
8. Even at this price, there are some limited scholarships based on a claim of financial need.
   
9. They offer a very limited, but practical, selection of majors (Health Science, IT, and Business). They are not trying to do more than they can reasonably manage, nor offer degrees that don’t fit easily into an online format.
   
10. They have a generous transfer program that includes CLEP and other alternative credit – thus it can be combined with the Modern States model for even more savings. **Coming soon, a detailed post on how to do this.
    
11. You can first earn an associate’s degree and then a bachelor’s. It just drives me nuts that traditional 4 year colleges and universities do not grant associate’s degrees, thus leaving dropouts with essentially nothing to show for their investment.

This is the short story about University of the People. There is a lot more to explore on their website, but my focus is really cost and overall value. The college is extremely cheap and provides actual accredited college degrees that apply to real world job opportunities.

That’s it for today. Happy debt-avoidance to all!