I am proud to announce that UoPeople
began the new academic year with a record-breaking enrollment of more
than 126,000
students. The number of refugee students the university serves has grown
to over 16,500
– more than any other university in the world. Among them over 10,000
Syrian, 500 Ukrainian students. I also am very happy to
share with you that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has just
awarded UoPeople a grant to help us analyze and learn more about our
diverse student body in the US and beyond. UoPeople continues to be one
of the most diverse universities in the U.S. with 42% of our U.S.
students identifying themselves as Black, 50% of are working parents and
60% are first-generation college students. In addition, 30% of our
faculty are Black. While continuing to grow, this year UoPeople will
focus on providing additional academic support services for our students
to further increase their satisfaction, retention, and graduation
rates.
One year after the Taliban’s
takeover, our Afghan initiative is continuing to expand with more than 2,000
Afghan women now studying with UoPeople. To date, the university has
received more than 8,000 applications for scholarships and new
applications are pouring in daily. We are continuing to raise funds to
provide additional opportunities to these brave Afghan women who
desperately want to continue their education.
PIENews,
a leading publication for professionals in international education, has
named UoPeople as PIEoneer of the Year – its top honor. Dubai Magazine recently
published a story about the rapidly growing demand for online education
in the Arab world and interviewed Pascaline Servan-Schreiber, chair of
the UoPeople’s Board of Trustees and several of our Arab students. And
one of our students, Angelo Cardona from Colombia, recently was awarded a
scholarship to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
You can read these stories and more below.
All my best,
