Harvard-Size Ambitions

THE ambition of the Minerva Schools at K.G.I., which calls itself the first elite American university to open in 100 years, is certainly not modest. The founder, Ben Nelson, a businessman with a longstanding armchair interest in education, aims to mount a stripped-down, low-cost challenge to Harvard.

The pedigree of those involved is elite enough. Mr. Nelson, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, was president of the photo site Snapfish when it sold to Hewlett-Packard for a reported $300 million. Bob Kerrey, former New School president and United States senator, is executive chairman. Lawrence H. Summers, the former Harvard president and Treasury secretary, is an adviser. And dean of arts and sciences will be Stephen Kosslyn, a former Harvard dean.

Mr. Nelson says Minerva’s students will come from a global “long tail” of high achievers who are good enough for the Ivy League but lack the money or luck of the anointed few who are admitted. Recruiters are on the ground already in India, Uruguay, Senegal and Shanghai for next fall’s charter class.

“We want to start one of the world’s great universities from scratch,” Mr. Nelson says. “We want to rethink everything, and bring together the world’s best curriculum, the best students, the best professors, at the lowest possible price.”

That will be $10,000 in tuition a year, with an overall cost of attendance estimated at $28,850 (average cost of a private college: $40,917). The for-profit start-up has raised $25 million in venture capital. Mr. Nelson plans to save money by stripping his offering to the essentials, which he defines as peer contact and (nontenured) faculty. “We didn’t load on costs like the campuses, the monuments, the sports franchises, the performing arts centers,” he says.

Though defined as residential, Minerva will own no real estate. Instead, students will live together in space rented by the college, initially in San Francisco. Eventually, they will move between world capitals over the course of their four years. The interdisciplinary core curriculum in liberal arts and sciences, focusing on critical thinking and communications skills, is to be delivered to them seminar style — face to face with mentors and in real-time video chat with professors over a software platform that tracks and analyzes student strengths and weaknesses.

Minerva hopes to secure regional accreditation through the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium that is partnering with the new school. And in another step gathering steam among innovative start-ups, Minerva will not accept federal financial aid.

“Why do it?” Mr. Kerry says. “As a for-profit, it can affect your reputation, because there is a presumption that a significant fraction of your income comes from the federal government.” Also, with federal oversight, “there’s a tendency to be risk averse.”

Students may find relief with scholarships from the nonprofit arm, the Minerva Institute, and the college may issue loans directly. For the founding class of 20 students, all will be free. Mr. Kerrey was initially skeptical of finding Ivy League-caliber applicants, and said the university would postpone opening until it did. But, he says now, “Given the quality of interest thus far, my confidence is increasing that we’ll find the right students.”