The British University has invited their students to join two of their courses about complementary currencies and pay their class fees in Bitcoin. This is probably the first time an University has accepted a digital currency as payment for one or more of their classes.
The University of Cumbria that is located in England’s Lake District offers Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Leadership and a Certificate of Achievement in Sustainable Exchange. It is for these two classes that they are trying out Bitcoin payments via Bitpay.
We have written about the “University of Nicosia in Cyprus is the First to Accept Bitcoin and Offer a Master’s in Digital Currencies” but the University of Cumbria is a public university which give the embrace of Bitcoin another meaning.
Professor Jim Bendell at the University of Cumbria says they are experimenting with Bitcoin because they believe in learning by doing:
“… To help inform our courses on complementary currencies, we are trialling the acceptance of them. The internal discussions about currency and payment innovation and the practical implications for different departments have been insightful.
“Some support Bitcoin due to its speed and cost, others due the new era of financial freedom it could enable. Others are concerned about it and how it will affect economies and society. Others think that what comes next will be even more important. We think it is essential to become better informed, and analyse it from many different perspectives.”
Gigaom writes: “…the postgraduate certificate course costs £3,333 ($5,479) and the certificate course cost £1,111. In today’s Bitcoin terms, at $960 to the bitcoin, that’s 5.7 and 1.9 bitcoins respectively – not bad for a proper qualification.”
