Last week, the University of the People launched the first American-accredited online MBA degree taught in Arabic, making American higher education more accessible to remote students across the globe.
The tuition-free online university is currently accepting applications for the new MBA which will commence teaching on April 11, 2024.
“The goal of providing an MBA degree program in Arabic is to expand access to affordable college education for Arabic-speaking students,” Shai Reshef, president of UoPeople, told The PIE News.
“There is a huge demand for American higher ed in the Arab world, however, both the language barrier and the high cost of tuition has prevented many Arab students from earning a college degree in the past,” Reshef added.
As reported by Forbes, the average cost of an MBA in the US is $61,800. Students at UoPeople will pay approximately $4,860 to cover application and evaluation fees across the 12 – 15 month degree.
To allow for remote and flexible learning, the UoPeople runs a model of asynchronous learning with no live lectures or set class times.
The university currently enrols more than 24,000 students in its Arabic programs, 10,000 of whom are Syrian refugees.
“The programs in Arabic were originally built to provide a solution for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees whose universities were destroyed and who applied to UoPeople but could not be admitted due to the language barrier,” said Reshef.
The MBA curriculum has been adapted into Arabic by a number of business education experts to preserve the quality of the academic program offered in English while making it compatible with the Arabic language, region and culture.
“Academic lecturers come from different Arab countries, which increases academic diversity and, thus, familiarity with different business trends and research results from different Arab countries,” said Reshef.
The University of the People is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, which is authorised by the US Department of Education.
