Between 10 and 33 euros. This is the reduced price of tuition to be paid students of the newly released people’s University, a virtual education project which is part of the Alliance Global of organization of United Nations (UN) on communication technology and development. The aim is to promote access to higher education for the most disadvantaged students. The new academic year 2009-2010 has begun with the offer of two degrees. To access the teachings only need a computer, an Internet connection and sufficient knowledge of the English language.The distance education in a virtual environment has established itself worldwide as an alternative ideal for thousands of young people who, for various reasons, can not attend face-to-face lessons in an educational institution. This option enables them to combine their training with other activities and allows them to organize their time of study according to the availability. Universities in most developed countries complete the offer academic degrees online students.In parallel, new centres of higher education dedicated exclusively to providing this type of training have been created.

One of the main advantages is the possibility of enrolment of students from different countries, provided that they comply with the requirements for admission. However, not all students can afford the costs of these virtual programs.Economic resources should not be the reason that prevents access to higher education for thousands of people in the world. This is the philosophy and starting point of a new educational institution: the University of the people, an innovative project, non-profit, framed in Alliance Global of the Organization of United Nations (UN) on communication technology and development. It offers online training to students from around the world for almost free. How the University of the people is a virtual educational centre that imparts higher distance at a very low cost training. This is made possible by open source teaching materials and to the altruistic collaboration of professors and graduate student volunteers from prestigious institutions such as the universities of Yale, Berkeley or New York.