Varsity with live-online classes to be set up in India

A new kind of undergraduate college, aiming to rival Ivy - league schools at a fraction of the cost, plans to set up a ‘residence hall’ in India.

A new kind of undergraduate college, aiming to rival Ivy - league schools at a fraction of the cost, plans to set up a ‘residence hall’ in India.

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Officials are most likely to set up the hall in Mumbai, with the first batch of students in 2016.

Students of the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute will learn through live-online lectures, and not in the regular classroom set-up.

The university’s degree will be awarded through a partnership with the Keck Graduate Institute, with residence halls for students across the world, including India.

This will not be a campus, but a dormitory arrangement with local partners to provide other facilities.

“We are looking at a completely different university experience,” said Robin Goldberg, chief marketing officer, on her first visit to India.

“We are re-imagining every aspect, including flexibility in academics and leveraging for students the best that every city has to offer.”

Each semester will be ‘curated’ around extra-curricular activities and experiences depending on the city. Classes will be restricted to 20 students, with students from different time zones able to take classes simul taneously.

The school also has plans to offer scholarships and student loan programmes.

The Minerva Schools has been envisioned as a global col lege experience, where students will spend their first year study ing common basic foundation courses in San Francisco, and then spend subsequent semes ters in one or more of seven cities around the world.

Students will take the same inter-disciplinary foundational courses in the first year as in California, and then pick majors and fan out to cities of their choice.

Minerva is yet to final ise its cities, but has locked down regions: Latin America, India China and Europe.