By Derek Newton
The University of the People, as I’ve written before, has issues.
Like most schools, UoPeople, as they like to be known, has to file annual reports with the State of California. Those reports show that, shockingly, UoPeople has graduated stunningly few students. Just 13 people received a bachelor’s degree in business from UoPeople in 2015. Just 13 more in 2016, according to their own records.
But the stunning part of those required disclosures is this line, “Educational programs at UoPeople are not designed to lead to, nor does UoPeople make any express or implied claim relating to preparing students for, a particular job placement or employment.”
Let’s parse that down.
According to their own records, an education at UoPeople is “not designed to lead to” employment. It’s also not “preparing students for” employment. In that case, it’s not at all clear what the “educational programs” at UoPeople are designed for. They don’t say. But not for employment, they are clear about that.
In four years, according to their taxes, UoPoeple has collected more than $3.5 million from students in “student tuition fees.” That does seem like an awful of money collected in order to graduate just a baker’s dozen of students per program per year with a degree that is expressly “not designed” to lead to a job.
