Friends of Minerva,Four years ago,

Friends of Minerva,

Four years ago, Minerva was nothing but an intentional plan: a plan to create the most effective higher education program in the world and, in so doing, compel other institutions to take notice, question their own systems, and force widespread reform in the coming decades. At the time, I did not realize how important those very simple yet clear intentions would be in guiding even our smallest decisions.

It is rare that institutions of higher learning effectively connect their stated intentions with the reality of their educational experience. Most universities will say they teach students critical thinking and creativity, to be effective communicators with global awareness, to become the next generation of leaders and innovators; there is scant evidence that any have systems in place to reliably do so. Minerva has not only gone from a concept to become the most selective accredited undergraduate program in the United States, it has also begun shining a critical light on contemporary higher learning — serving as a model for twenty-first century universities.

Initial evidence of the effectiveness of our curriculum can be found in the level of internships and research positions secured by many Founding Class students, who are currently on a gap year. After only two semesters, these remarkable students are working in positions that would be coveted by most Ivy League graduates. From Silicon Valley technology companies and venture capital firms to social impact foundations and research institutes, employers have been impressed with the contributions our students are making, even after studying at Minerva for eight short months.

While we clearly have extraordinary students at Minerva, it is hard to argue that Harvard, Stanford, and Cambridge select substantially worse raw talent. The difference is in the deliberate design of our curriculum — a course of study that specifically teaches students to break problems down into component parts, find creative solutions to those problems, consider the long-term implications of those solutions, and work effectively individually and collaboratively to enact them. The difference is that students at other top-tier universities, at best, gain some of these skills by happenstance, but do not benefit from a systematic course of study.

Equally remarkable is the quality of student experience we have been able to deliver beyond the structured academic framework. Through an intentionally-planned series of location-based learning activities, our students are experiencing deep cultural engagement, with access to some of the world’s leading figures and institutions. Except for the centrally-located residence hall, we have no official campus facilities, yet we have enabled a level of self-discovery and realization that is only possible in the context of one of the world’s great cities.

Perhaps the most profound impact of our intentional design is in the global accessibility of the program and the way we select students. The overwhelming majority of students at the most selective American universities come from the richest 1% of the world’s citizens. So called “need-blind” admissions policies have intrinsic flaws, such as legacy admissions, recruitment of athletes for elitist sports, and standardized testing, all of which favor wealthy Americans. Recent proposals to initiate admissions processes in the ninth grade, under the guise of improving access, will almost certainly exacerbate the problem.

At Minerva, we recognize that exceptional raw talent is geographically and socioeconomically distributed; the smartest, most capable students in the world can be found in every region and at every level of affluence. By devising an admissions policy that explicitly eliminates qualities not associated with student aptitude, we have produced a student community unlike any other. Because we treat every applicant equally, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or nationality, 78% of Minerva students come from outside the United States, with representatives from more than 30 different countries.

While we anticipated this incredible diversity, we did not predict that over 75% of our students would require some form of financial assistance in order to attend. This was particularly surprising because we have set the cost to attend Minerva at well under half that of our peer institutions. Our mission cannot be fulfilled unless the best and brightest students — not just the wealthy among them — have access to Minerva. For that reason, I have personally donated much of my time and money to provide scholarships for these students. Minerva has also committed $30M of equity as a matching challenge to build a robust, need-based scholarship fund for the most driven, intellectually-curious, and broad-minded students in the world.

I am also thrilled that we announced our first graduate degree: a Master’s of Applied Arts & Sciences, which is exclusively available to our undergraduate student