In today’s New York Times:

Israeli Entrepreneur Plans a Free Global University That Will Be Online Online Only

An Israeli entrepreneur with decades of experience in international education plans to start the first global, tuition-free Internet university, a nonprofit venture he has named the University of the People.

“The idea is to take social networking and apply it to academia,” said the entrepreneur, Shai Reshef, founder of several Internet-based educational businesses.

“The open-source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free,” Mr. Reshef said. “We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.”

On the heels of MIT moving instruction from lectures to small group, high schools really need to take notice. The arguments about needing “traditional” teaching to prepare students for university no longer hold water. Rest of the NYT article here.