Signum University

Signum University is founded on the principle that great education should happen without overcharging students or exploiting faculty and staff.  Signum reduces costs to students by maintaining a completely virtual campus, which it uses to bring teachers and students around the world together for live, interactive classes, building a vibrant academic community that ignores geographic boundaries.

Signum began in 2011 with no startup capital and no institutional affiliation, seeking to take a new approach to higher education from the ground up.  We began, through the founding of the Mythgard Institute, by establishing a remarkable program for an enthusiastic subset of students: readers of fantasy and science-fiction literature.  For four years now we have been conducting a program that has enabled hundreds of students to fulfill their dreams of studying speculative literature and film with some of the field's greatest teachers and scholars from around the world.  We have kept our pledge to charge our students a reasonable, affordable tuition, while paying our faculty stipends several times higher than the national average, supported only by our students and the generosity of our donors.  Moreover, we have committed ourselves to supporting numerous open educational programs, designed to enable members of the general public to participate freely in the prolific intellectual life of Signum University.

Signum has already begun making a difference in the lives of students, and we believe that Signum University and other schools like it are going to make a difference in higher education.  We strive to help bring about a new world in which students won't be forced to choose between debt and educational compromise, and in which staff and faculty are allowed to flourish in an equitable and amicable environment.  We have no plans ever to participate in federal student loan programs or to seek government funding, but to support ourselves only by the tuition we receive from our students and the gifts bestowed by the individuals and institutions that believe in our vision.