American Online University Helps Ukrainians

Initially, the University of the People (UoPeople), as “Osvitoria” already wrote , provided free access to more than 135 courses. And later it offered 1,000 scholarships for those who left Ukraine to go abroad. What are the benefits of studying at an online university and what is required to enroll? Read on.

Pedagogy in a bomb shelter

According to Kateryna Glubochenko, a teacher from Mykolaiv who shared her experience with the press, she and her 10-year-old son had to spend two weeks almost constantly in the bomb shelter. Air raids by Russian aircraft on their hometown took place every hour. A pregnant woman with her son only went out to get food. When she wasn’t encouraging her son, she took free courses at UoPeople. This made it possible to believe that it will be possible to survive everything and that there is a lot of interesting things ahead, that life goes on.

Since then, Kateryna managed to leave for Spain to protect her child from the war. She is studying for a master’s degree in pedagogy, having received a scholarship from UoPeople to complete her studies in an unfamiliar country.

What this student experienced is no exception. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of May 24, 2022, the number of refugees from Ukraine abroad amounted to more than 6.64 million people.

UoPeople is the first non-profit, accredited online university in the US, founded 13 years ago. In addition to Masters in Education and IT, the university also offers Bachelors in IT, Business Administration and Health Sciences. The unusual online university only charges technical fees for knowledge assessment — just $120 per year. Along with registration and some other fees, a full four-year undergraduate course costs $4,860.

Every eleventh student is a refugee

Making high-quality education inexpensive became possible thanks to the fact that all teachers (which are 29,000 professionals) work as volunteers. The President’s Council of the University includes neurophysiologist, Nobel Laureate Torsten N. Wiesel, current and former management of the University of California at Berkeley, New York University, Rockefeller University.

Solid teaching staff and new approaches to education motivate students quite a bit. If, according to statistics, in other projects only 4% of those who start online studies complete it, then at UoPeople the majority reach the finals, because they expect to receive the same education as in other traditional universities in the USA. Some UoPeople graduates work in the most famous companies: Amazon, Apple, Dell, Deloitte, IBM, Microsoft.

Currently, more than 117,000 students from more than 200 countries study at the online university, including 10,500 refugees. That is, every eleventh person left Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, and African countries because of a threat to their lives. That’s more refugees than are enrolled in all other US colleges and universities combined!

And this is not a coincidence. UoPeople considers it its mission to ensure that every person has the right to access education. Here, in addition to those who simply find it convenient to study online, there are also many who have fallen into difficult life circumstances: the homeless, prisoners, young mothers with babies. This online university teaches people from Arab countries entirely in Arabic. After the Taliban took over Afghanistan and barred women from receiving higher education, UoPeople provided scholarships to 1,600 Afghan women to secretly study at home. Currently, another 8,000 Afghan women have applied for scholarships.

“University in a suitcase”

The most painful topic is the youth, deprived of hope for the future because of the war. According to the UN, only 5% of refugees in the world receive higher education. Because of this, they have no chance to find a decent job and become financially independent.

In Ukraine, due to the military aggression of Russia, classes were stopped or interrupted in many universities. In 24 regions, they are now held remotely, but some students have problems with the Internet. The premises of 111 Ukrainian universities were damaged or destroyed. Young refugees from Ukraine have a lot of problems with their education: foreign language and the cost of education become obstacles, because of the war, it is not possible to transfer to another higher education institution abroad, sometimes there are no academic certificates about completed sessions.

UoPeople wants every student to feel that they have a future after the war. At UoPeople, they joke that they have a “university in an anxious suitcase” that is always with you, even if you had to flee your country or were able to return home.

For admission, it is necessary to provide only a scan of the document on completion of secondary education. You don’t need broadband to learn, just a basic internet connection. And that’s not permanent, but at least from time to time to watch or download materials at a convenient time. After the end of the war, Ukrainian students will be able to return to their universities or complete their studies at UoPeople. However, refugees often don’t have the money to pay for it, so those who study on an online university scholarship are covered for the full cost of their higher education here.

You can apply for a scholarship here. Those who want to join the study without a bachelor’s or master’s degree simply need to write to the online university to access the materials.

By the way, some traditional universities in Europe and the USA, although not on such a scale, are also trying to help Ukrainian refugees. For example, many of them offer free tuition and accommodation for the summer semester: the Swiss University of Zurich, the American Hampton University (for 100 students), the American University of Chicago, the Italian University of Padua (50 students will be taken for one semester and 75 for permanent study).

This is a translated version of the original story first published in Osvitoria.