UoPeople Creates the World’s First Cryptocurrency Endowment Fund

Fastest Growing Online University Also Will Award Digital NFT Diplomas

PASADENA, CA (December 14, 2021) — University of the People (UoPeople) announced today that it has established the first endowment fund seeded with cryptocurrency donations. The University also announced that it will begin providing its graduates with digital diplomas via NFTs, giving students the option to pay course fees with cryptocurrency, and integrating content about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology into its curriculum.

Albert Wenger, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, and his wife Susan Danziger, founder of The Eutopia Foundation, contributed the first $1 million in cryptocurrency to create the endowment fund in Coinbase. The University has raised an additional million dollars in digital assets and aims to reach $10 million in initial funding.

The digital diplomas will be tamper-proof and can be easily shared with potential employers. Having digital diplomas that can be accessed from anywhere around the globe at any time is critically important to many students – particularly to refugees or graduates who need to provide proof of their education to employers abroad.

In many countries, it is also extremely difficult or very expensive to transfer funds internationally. As the majority of UoPeople’s more than 117,000 students are international, being able to pay for courses using cryptocurrency will make it easier and less costly for these students to transfer money.

Finally, recognizing that cryptocurrency is increasingly playing a major role in the future of the financial world, UoPeople will be integrating content on financial technology, including cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology into its curriculum to ensure that all of its students learn about this dynamic and rapidly growing field.

“As the university of the future, it makes perfect sense for us to create our endowment in the currency of the future as well as provide our graduates with digital diplomas as NFTs,” said University of the People President Shai Reshef. “UoPeople has developed a new model of higher education and cryptocurrency is a new model of finance. We have a responsibility to educate our students about how cryptocurrency is transforming the way the world conducts business.”

To make a donation to UoPeople’s Cryptocurrency Endowment Fund, please find Bitcoin and Ethereum addresses below, or contact Sion Schlanger, Vice President of Finance, at sion.schlanger@uopeople.edu.

Bitcoin: 3M9hekcTQcxkHMe1ikqkaZCWWuUxM7o55o

Ethereum: 0xf3491c788071c4a295a0525ae6ed443697993a6b

###

About University of the People

University of the People (UoPeople) is the Education Revolution. It is the first non-profit, tuition-free, American, accredited online university. Currently there are over 117,000 students from more than 200 countries and territories. Designed to open access to higher education globally, UoPeople helps qualified high school graduates overcome financial, geographic, political, and personal constraints keeping them from higher education. UoPeople does not charge any tuition and all course materials are available online for free. It does charge nominal fees of $120 at the end of each undergraduate course ($240 for graduate-level courses) to keep its operations running. This means a student can earn a bachelor’s degree for $4,860. To fulfill its mission that no qualified student be left behind, the University offers financial aid for those who cannot afford the modest course assessment fees. The University offers associate and bachelor’s degree programs in business administration, computer science, and health science, as well as an MBA and M.Ed. program. Graduates of UoPeople can be found working at such companies as Deloitte, Amazon, Apple, Pfizer, Google, Microsoft and IBM. Chaired by NYU’s President Emeritus John Sexton, UoPeople’s President’s Council is comprised of two dozen leaders of the world’s foremost institutions. UoPeople collaborates with Harvard Business School Online, New York University, McGill University, and the University of Edinburgh and has been supported by foundations such as the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation. Learn more at www.uopeople.edu.

Source: University of the People

Media Contact:

Dan Kalmanson
973-609-2614
Daniel.Kalmanson@uopeople.edu