The University of the World expands higher education - making it more effective, less costly, and available to more people.

This expansion does not challenge existing approaches of campus-based or online. Rather, the University of the World complements these by positioning the learning environment in the world – all around the world – and, in doing so, also utilizes classrooms and online learning.

The University of the World will launch its first pilot class in the Fall 2015 in cooperation with the Future Generations Graduate School. This hybrid class will fuse some of the University's innovative pedagogy with the accredited Master's degree structure of Future Generations. The cohorts will be made up of students from the Appalachian region of the United States, from East Africa, and from the Himalaya.

An Education for the Modern World

Today's global economy has shown that the traditional university system to pursue higher education is beyond reach for 85% of the world's population (cost, distance, inability to gain admissions, or simply no vacant seats). Moreso, degrees earned in a classroom often do not prepare many students for the life employment needs of the modern world. A new approach is possible – on that bridges learning and life.

The University of the World places education in the hands of people. Recent high school graduates may earn an Associate’s Degree – this equips them as professionals. Experienced professionals can earn a Master’s Degree – this equips them to be supervisors or trainers of professionals. Degrees are earned not by sitting in a classroom, but through a rigorous curriculum that grows skill competencies and is peer-reviewed and faculty-supervised. The resulting degree proves not just what the student knows, but, more importantly, as the student actively applies the learning during his or her study, it will improve livelihoods.

What makes the University of the World Distinctive?

• A high school or college student can enroll once he/she has an approved Learning Vision and Learning Plan
• Students learn practical skills that improve community-based employment
• The place of learning is in and of the world
• The process of learning is from their peers in their communities and around the world
• Faculty oversee this peer-to-peer process as learning coaches
• Mobile devices connect the discussion, enabling students to be anywhere. They can be mentored from everywhere, growing learning in their home communities while bringing in world guidance.
• Without the cost of campus, tuition is significantly reduced so as to be affordable to more students
• Students enroll in this distinctive educational opportunity while meeting the requirements of international standards to graduate

This new complementary approach to higher education now grows within the University of the World. To enable the growth, the university is actively seeking partners around the world: partners who will become field campuses, and who also seek to take the innovations in pedagogy and apply them. Essential for any prospective partner is a commitment to rigorous scholarly evaluation of the product and process. A grand endeavor in global learning has started, and it will evolve with rigor only when coupled to objective assessment.

How it Works

What it Might Look Like

Imagine a mother with few professional options. She enrolls in the University of the World in the Family Agriculture track and learns how to farm in the city (using window boxes and her roof). She has joined an Associate’s Degree program that will equip her to grow a life-changing business, enabling not just farming capacity by capacity that will lead to better health and larger social change, drawing in people in the community. Using mobile devices, students are mentored by faculty and peers around the world. Access to education expands as her learning platform is global. The overall product promotes acquisition as well as utilization of knowledge (the two roles of a university).

Now, imagine this mother, after growing her business for six or more years into a family-supporting endeavor, she then enrolls in the university’s Master’s degree, where she learns how to help others grow such businesses – with that degree she then also becomes eligible for employment in government or nongovernment agencies.

The initial degrees that will be offered are:

Family Agriculture
Education Leadership
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Home-centered Health
Local-to-Global Connectivity

The University of the World is authorized as an institution of higher education by the Higher Education Policy Commission of the State of West Virginia and holds tax-exempt status 501(c)3, Subsection 170(b)1(A)ii from the United States Internal Revenue Service.