University of the People was started by Shai Reshef in January 2009. Make a University of the People diploma, the university has no campus due to its online distance learning nature; it uses a shared office in California as an office of admission.
The first UoPeople students began classes in September 2009, studying for associate and bachelor’s degrees in business administration and computer science, buy University of the People certificate.
In February 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the University of the People a grant of $613,282 for the purpose of helping the university earn national accreditation. Two years later, the university was accredited for degree-granting programs through the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC).
In 2016, the university began offering an online MBA.
In 2017, the University of Edinburgh partnered with the school so that Health Science graduates of the University of the People could complete a bachelor’s at UE.
In 2018, the university announced the new online Master of Education in Advanced Teaching in collaboration with the International Baccalaureate. This new program started taking in students in 2019.
IB started to offer 80 scholarships for eligible M.Ed. students in 2020.
UoPeople in Arabic, announced in the World Economic Forum in April 2019, buy an online education diploma, launched in September 2020 with its own website in Arabic; it uses a different website in Arabic and does not require proof of English knowledge.
