Undocumented Students Turn to Tuition-Free Online University

About a quarter of the U.S. students enrolled in University of the People, a nonprofit online university, are undocumented immigrants, NPR reports.

About 2,500 students are enrolled in the low-cost university; roughly half of them live in the United States. Students pay $100 to process every final exam. A four-year bachelor's degree costs about $4,000. About 25 percent of students pay nothing, thanks to scholarships from companies including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Intel.

When it was accredited in 2014, the founder, Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef, said the goal was to expand the student body to 5,000 by 2016. He said he intended the university to help students living in challenging circumstances with little or no access to higher education.